


And the North Wind Blows

by qthelights



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Big Bang Challenge, Cabin Fic, Ecoterrorist, First Time, Forest Ranger, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Love/Hate, M/M, Mystery, Owls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-19
Updated: 2011-06-19
Packaged: 2017-10-30 00:24:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 31,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qthelights/pseuds/qthelights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jensen is a ranger in the US Forest Service, on loan to the Canadians with the dual mandate of protecting the Boreal forest and a US logging outfit. He likes his solitary life collecting data and spending time in the luscious green forest that looms around his little cabin, until the day he gets a phone call: an eco-terrorist is protecting a tree the logging company wants to cut down. The terrorist in question, a young activist named Misha who climbs and swings through the trees like Tarzan, is not what he expects. Charged with getting him down and locking him up, Jensen has his work cut out for him, especially when it appears something more sinister is going on. What follows is a whirlwind of forbidden romance, lust and danger that turns Jensen's once-quiet life upside down. And the most worrying part is he doesn't think he minds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The call comes at 6.47am, a sharp trilling from the satellite phone in the next room; a sound like electronic crickets in summer. Outside the wind is picking up, whipping through the Douglas Fir and pines that dwarf the small cabin in their shadows. Definitely not summer anymore, if the creeping chill is anything to go by. Someone forgot to tell the  _Gryllidae_.

Jensen groans into his face-hollowed pillow, breath moist and warm.  _Fuck_. It’s not even seven. If it’s a call about a lost hiker, he’s going to take a shotgun to find them.

Shivering as he sticks his leg out from under the eiderdown to judge the temperature, he summons the courage to leap out into the cold. It might be fall, but this early in the morning and, hidden in the dip of mountains like he is, one would be forgiven for thinking it’s the depths of winter. Especially for one originally from LA.

He represses a full body shudder as he throws back the covers completely. “Shit,” he swears into the empty room. Socks and jocks do not a warm man make.

Dawn has broken, just. But it’s still dingy and dark inside the cabin and he fumbles his way to the door with hands outstretched, just in case. Hung off the back of the door, the fleecy softness of his dressing gown beckons, and he slips into the dark grey flannel with gratitude.

In the next room, the phone is still warbling urgently.

Figures. The damn thing has been fucked up all ways from Sunday for the last  _month_ , when a big storm swept in from the North and knocked a wayward branch into the satellite dish. Jensen’s had trouble getting calls out ever since, let alone getting the damn forestry department to send up new parts. Yet when they need him, the thing magically works?

He leaves the lights off as he heads into the main room of the cabin, letting the glow of the computer monitor guide him in the dark. The light on the phone is flickering so obnoxiously, he contemplates going back to bed and pulling a pillow over his head. But he knows himself better than that; the guilt would keep him awake, an endless stream of young heroines mauled to death by wild bears playing through his head. Dead, because he wanted a bit of a snooze. Wouldn’t play well in the press.

With a sigh, he picks up the phone. In retrospect, it’s the exact moment that everything goes wrong. “Ackles,” he grumbles into the static.

“Ranger? That you?” A depressingly familiar, curt, male voice comes down the line. Just what he needs.

“Senator,” Jensen replies, flicking the computer chair out with his foot and settling in. Maybe, if the phone is working, then his email will be; he can at least get something out of the conversation. “How can I help you?”

“I’ve been calling for half an hour, where the hell have you been?”

He could call him on the fact that that’s bullshit. He really could. But in the end, it wouldn’t accomplish anything but a larger headache, so he lies. “Outside checking the rain gauges. Looks like we’re in for a big storm.”

“Right. Well I need you to get out to the East Ridge. I’ve been on the phone all night to some  _very_ unhappy execs from Abraxas. What the hell is going on up there?”

“Not sure what you mean, sir,” Jensen replies half-heartedly, focuses instead on clicking open his email. The whirling dervish of anticipatory animation suggests his attempt at reaching news of civilisation is not going to go well. Another normal day, then.

“Out at the number three field, for Christ's sake,” the Senator responds, anger taking his already sonorous voice up a notch. “With the damned tree-huggers sabotaging the fucking place. Fuller is reporting tampering with machines, traps and nails, all sorts of dangerous and, I’ll remind you, highly _illegal_  activity.”

Jensen actually perks up at that bit of information. It’s the first he’s heard about potential trouble at the fell site. It’s happened before, sure, but this far up North? And this close to winter? It’s a two-week hike just to get up here, and that’s only if the person is extremely fit. Certainly there aren’t any roads accessible to the public. 

“This is the first I’m hearing of it, I can assure you,” Jensen replies, hunts around in the mess on the desk for a pad of paper and a pencil to jot down notes.

The Senator snorts, and it’s weirdly distorted over the crackle of the line. “Well, Fuller says they’ve got a fucking nut job out there right now, sitting up a god damned tree. Now that you know about it, fix it. You know how important it is to get the logs out before winter, Ranger. I don’t need to remind you that your job up there depends upon it.”

“No, sir,” Jensen replies, clipped. He will not rise to the bait. “I understand.”

“Good,” the Senator snaps and hangs up.

“Asshole,” Jensen mutters at the receiver.

A soft  _kikiki_  comes from the other side of the darkened room and Jensen smiles despite the annoyance throbbing through him. He gets up and heads to the far wall behind the battered-up sofa. The large cage on the table is covered in blankets. Gently, he pulls them aside to peer into the dark cavern. He can’t see much, but a slightly darker patch of shadow alerts him as to where the owl sits, cooing softly.

He found Bob a couple of weeks back as he’d walked one of the valleys north of the cabin, an adolescent Northern Spotted Owl with an injured wing. A flurry of brown feathers down amongst the ferns: dark, chocolate brown, speckled white across his head and snowy white spots down his wings. 

Approaching carefully, because the fact he was on the ground at all indicated he was injured, Jensen had seen that the little guy had one wing stretched out, trailing the ground. His tail feathers splayed up and out in fear, but he didn’t even try and fly away, which worried Jensen the most. That he’d let Jensen pick him up, both hands wrapped carefully from behind around his brown-and-white striped chest, had cemented it. The bird needed help. A warm cardboard box and a blanket to sit in later, he’d let Jensen examine the wing. There didn’t seem to be anything broken, which was lucky, because there was no way Jensen could do anything other than put the thing to sleep, were that the case. So Jensen had kept him inside, away from prowling lynx. He’d named him Bob, and that was that. He’d have to let him go eventually, but for now, he was enjoying the company of the bird’s soft chattering.

“Tell me about it,” he mutters quietly at Bob’s big-eyed stare, which materialises out of the darkness as Jensen’s eyes adjust.

His whole week has been shot to hell now. The last thing he needs is to have to deal with some eco-terrorist defending the lives of fucking pine trees. It’s not that he doesn’t have compassion for their cause; he does, he went into Botany after all, not logging. And despite what the Senator might think, his job is  _not_  ensuring the logging company meets its paid for quota, so much as making sure they don’t permanently damage the forest in the process. But he’s never understood the kind of reckless ‘laws don’t apply’ protestations of eco-terrorists. And no matter what they stand for, he will never endorse practices such as tree-spiking or the placing of caltrops to damage vehicles, or worse.

But before he can attempt to muster the energy to deal with some supposed ‘crazy up a tree’, he has to take care of other things. Like playing his daily game of ‘When I Get Back to Civilisation’. Not for the first time, the winner is, _‘When I get back to civilisation I will worship the first coffee machine I see.’_  

The gas stove flickers on as he pokes it with a lit match. Water on to boil, he opens the cupboard above the stove, pulls down the percolator and coffee grounds. It’ll be too strong and taste like ass, but at least it isn’t instant.

Yeah. An espresso machine. That’s what he can’t wait to use when he gets back to civilisation.

* * *

Jensen procrastinates. He justifies it to himself that, as a warden in the Canadian Forest Service, he has more to do than run errands for the logging outfits that dot the land. Which is true. He really does. Of course, that doesn’t take into account that he’s on loan from the United States Forest Service with the specific, unsaid mandate to watch over US interests. Necessary evil.

Mainly, though, he takes his time, because he doesn’t want to have to go and play on the side of evil, defending the destruction of the forests he loves. Also, he doesn’t want to deal with some self-righteous asshole who thinks he gets to decide for an entire world what’s done with its resources. It’s tiring. And they usually don’t bathe.

It’s probably his mother talking in his head - he’s found her voice has gotten louder, the further away from home he goes - but Jensen likes to be clean. Even if that isn’t under the best of circumstances.

For instance, the cabin he now calls home is literally hundreds of miles from the nearest town. Plumbing is not a luxury that happens this far up in the mountains. He’s lucky, at least, that the nearby lumber industry has allowed for the setting up of a fairly comfortable standard of living. Supply runs can be done only when weather is good and, this far North, it often isn’t. During summer they can ship things up by hitching a ride on one of the Cessnas flying out to the logging sites, but only if there’s spare room. And if the logging companies feel like helping.

Almost everything is powered by the diesel generator and the propane tanks out back; no electricity. It’s fine, but it means Jensen has to be careful. Half-hour showers and warm steam fogging up mirrors are things of the past he only distantly remembers.

Still, at least the bathroom is  _inside_  the cabin. The toilet is composting and the shower works via gravity, a five-gallon tank and heated by the world’s tiniest propane heater. But it’s enough that Jensen almost feels like he’s in civilisation. A short shower is better than no shower.

Following his coffee and precious five minutes under the lukewarm water, Jensen finally shrugs into his dark olive-green cargo pants and black T-shirt. As uniforms go, it’s pretty boring, but Jensen’s grown to appreciate the normalcy of the same clothes each day. It beats the raised eyebrows or pursed lips he used to get from Jared when he’d pull on a pair of skinny-jeans that were apparently “so last year” for being the wrong shade of acid-wash. His army-green Forest Service windbreaker and heavy-duty boots complete the ensemble. He’d be castrated in Los Angeles if he turned up in this getup, but here there’s no one around to care except a random caribou or coyote. It suits him just fine.

Outside, the forest is quiet. The black peat moss of earth and needles at his feet, a soft velvety carpet, covers the sounds of his footsteps, those of other creatures. The trees tower around the cabin, giant pillars of pine reaching up into the pale white sky. It’s his favourite part of the day, stepping into the sheltered cathedral of trees. He pauses, as he always does, lets his lungs fill with the cold air. It’s crisp and clean; tastes of dirt and pine and rotting wood. The forest would be silent but for the twittering cheeps and trilling scales of songbirds in the trees. Even so, the songs are somehow transcendental, leaving a calm solemnity beneath the noise.

Stretching his arms over his head and letting the joints down his back pop loudly, Jensen takes a moment to consider what to do next. It’s at least a five-mile hike over moderate terrain to the East Ridge site; getting there and back will eat up a fair portion of the day. He doesn’t have a lot of the administrative minutiae that he’d have to deal with back home in the US. Out here there are no visitors to educate, no school children on class trips or even many back-country hikers. The trails that exist are few and far between, him being the only one that needs use them, so clearing and maintenance aren’t on his docket, either. Certainly there are no campsites he has to check for regulation breaches.

His time is usually used for scientific management: Care and conservation of the forest, monitoring of the local eco-systems to determine the impact of logging activities. He does a lot more science than a US ranger, and for that he’s glad. It’s why he was chosen for this special assignment. Sure, he also plays a political role, liaison between industry and government, and law enforcement is definitely still on the cards, but those things don’t take up the majority of his time, even if perhaps they could. Most days he spends in the forest, observing animal movement and insect infestations, soil pH and precipitation levels. If not outside, he sits hunched over a microscope on the old rickety table inside, noting changes, collating data, shifting an endless tower of precariously balanced texts.

He hasn’t been out to the Abraxas No. 3 site in months. There’s only a skeleton crew there, or at least there was. Most of the lumber cutting had been further downstream at the 1 and 2 sites, the more lucrative hard woods proving too tempting to fell before the winter ice made floating the timber down river too costly. There’s still logging happening at the site, but it’s selective felling, a mix of hard and soft woods; Jensen hasn’t had all that much problem with the company taking down safe-marked trees. Still, it is probably time for a check-up. Not that he has a choice.

Sighing, Jensen sets about doing the minimum he needs to. He checks the water level on the tank: it’s still good, though if they don’t get rain soon he might need to top up from one of the nearby creeks, which is never a fun task. He makes a note to keep an eye on it. The propane tanks are in a similar state; they have to be at least a quarter full, and he knows if they were running low he’d be able to detect it by odour. He’s been waiting for new tanks for months now, and they’re closing in on winter hard and fast. They’ll have to get them to him soon, but they’re cutting it close and it makes him antsy.

All his experiments are in their agar specimen dishes in the fridge, happily growing in colourful blooms and lattices. He’d wanted to hike north to check on some of the older Spruce groves for insect infestation, but it’s not like it can’t wait. A rise in the  _Choristoneura_  Spruce Budworm levels could indicate an imbalance that needs attention though, and he doesn’t want to blithely ignore the importance of that. Any change in the ecosystem is indicative of  _something_. Though he has little hope he’ll be the one to find incontrovertible proof of global warming, he has to believe every little bit counts. The further south the less likely conifers will be to check, Spruce included, so that plan will have to wait if he has to hike in the wrong direction to the Abraxas site. Annoying, but not enough to get him out of facing the music.

Hippie it is, then.

Back inside, Jensen gathers up a pack, compass and map; though he knows the area like the back of his hand, he isn’t about to be the dumb American who went out and died, lost in the wilds of Canada. He also throws in a water bottle and spare socks (he’d learnt that lesson the hard way).

“See ya later, Bobster,” he calls to the owl currently sitting in a ball of puffed feathers, head ducked down, nothing but a huge pair of yellow and black eyes staring at him. Bob doesn’t reply, but his little head, and only his head, turns to follow Jensen’s progress to the door; his own little exorcism-in-waiting.

Shutting the cabin door behind him, he heads out of the valley, cutting through the underbrush until he finds one of the narrow White Deer trails to make his way south easier.

* * *

Jensen lets his mind wander as he hikes through the forest. Even when he has to turn off the animal track and plunge back into the ferny undergrowth, it’s still not hard going. The trees shelter him from the sun, creating a dappled mesh of light and leaves to walk through. It’s chilly, but Jensen keeps up a good pace, letting the pull of his muscles warm him.

He’s quiet enough that he catches sight of at least one of Bob’s cousins, sleepily blinking at him from a shadowy branch at least thirty feet up in one of the pines; loud enough to hear larger animals crash through the undergrowth before he gets to them. He’s only seen a few bears in his time out here in the wilds. They were amazing, but he’s quite content to not see them any closer than ‘from a distance’. And they were only black bears; he has no desire whatsoever to come face-to-face with a Grizzly.

Some two hours later, and he can see the makeshift huts and tents of the Abraxas site. There are at least two bulldozers and a skidder parked idly in the sun that shines through the canopy with ease here, thinned as it is from the logging. Jensen spots a couple of workers, off to the far corner of the yard, stereotypical flannel shirts and yellow hard hats lending them a childish appearance. They tug on thick rope cables, lugging them towards one of the temporary buildings. He doesn’t recognise them, but when they spot him and wave, Jensen waves back, ever the friendly forest ranger. They’re probably just boomers, extra hands on deck to boost productivity before the entire cast has to clear out for winter.

Instead of going over to chat - it’s not like he knows them, or is likely to agree with their outlook on life when it comes down to it - he banks left, heading for the larger of the squat rectangular buildings. The windows are plastic, scratched and dirty, and the outer screen door hangs from its hinges. Painted on the siding in messy, black block letters, it reads, ‘FOREMAN’S OFFICE,’ in case, Jensen presumes, someone wanders 150 miles in the wrong direction, stumbles upon the yard and wonders where the boss is. Not that they’d want to find the guy even accidentally, he reminds himself. He knocks firmly on the roughly-hewn door.

“Come!” 

From experience, he knows it’s the only invitation he’s going to get, barked sharp and in a tone that doesn’t broker friendship. Jensen rolls his eyes before shouldering open the door.

Inside it smells of sawdust, sweat and cigarette smoke. Maps and geographical surveys clutter the room; shrouds of blue and white boundaries that demarcate ‘illegal’ from ‘profit’. Viewed from inside, the windows are grimy and grey. The light pushes itself in against resistance. The floor, or what can be seen of it, is caked with dirty brown mud. Fuller sits behind a desk, all weaselly grin and thinning hair. Even sitting, Fuller’s above-average height seems to shrink the room around him. Jensen enters, only going in as far as he needs; a lion’s den and easy prey. 

“Ranger Fred,” the foreman chuckles with a shark-like grin, pleased at his own wit. Jensen’s fingers twitch. 

He won’t allow him to get his hackles up. It’s too early in the morning, and so he ignores the dig. “The senator informs me you have a security issue, Fuller?”

“Yes, and it’s about time you got your ass over here to deal with it.”

“You could have contacted me directly.”

“It seemed so much more...expedient, this way.” Fuller shrugs in mock helplessness. As if he’s only been doing his duty, pushed to extreme action under duress.

“Right,” Jensen mutters. “So where is the protester at? I’ll see what I can do.”

“The  _terrorist_ ,” Fuller snipes, “is down in the far quadrant. And you’d best remove him. I don’t care how. He’s holding up the whole line. My boys can’t take down anything nearby in case they injure the asshole.”

“There are plenty more trees under your license,” Jensen points out.

“And the license says I can cut any of the non-marked trees down at any time,” Fuller snaps. “I want those ones, and I want them before winter sets in. Not to mention he’s deliberately fucking up machinery.”

Jensen notes the information. If the guy is sabotaging equipment, it gives him a lot more cause to remove him. It also makes Jensen dislike him far more. “Like I said, I’ll see what I can do. But you know full well I can’t just shoot him out of the tree, either.”

“If you can’t...”

“I didn’t say I can’t get him down,” Jensen snaps, letting a smidgen of anger seep into his tone. Baiting the man won’t get him anywhere, though, as he knows from bitter experience. 

“You’d better,” Fuller says and his tone is angrier, his face blotching red. “He’s tree-spiking and painting false marks. I lost one of the diggers to a caltrop in the tires and it’s too late in the season to be hauling heavy equipment out, so if the patch job doesn’t hold...”

Jensen frowns. He actively dislikes Fuller, and the idea of logging the forest in general, but illegal activity is still illegal, and when all is said and done he’s a sworn officer of the law. There are ways to protest, and this way is the coward’s way as far as he’s concerned. Sure, it might seem effective, but all it does is give protesters a bad name, and Congress a reason to ignore them. The real fight takes place in courts, even if it requires more time and stamina. 

“Someone is going to pay these damages,” says Fuller, “and it isn’t going to be me.”

“Okay, okay,” Jensen holds his palm out, aiming to placate. “If he’s damaging property then it gives us leverage. I’ll get him down, but it might take a few days. In the meantime, cut some of the world’s precious resources down in another quarter, okay?” 

Fuller opens his mouth to protest, but Jensen doesn’t give him the chance. 

“I mean it, Fuller. If I so much as see a fresh boot print, you’re on your own. I know of at least a dozen violations out there, and don’t think I won’t check each and every one of those protected trees to make sure they’re still standing.” He pauses a moment before adding, “You might not respect me, but you’re smart enough to know I can make your life a lot harder.”

Fuller snorts, but it comes out far less aggressive than it could be. “Just do your damn job, Freddie. Don’t forget who pays your wages.”

Jensen doesn’t bother to point out the US Government is not run by the logging industry. It’s a debate he knows he won’t win. “I’ll get back to you in a few days,” he says, and in two strides he’s back out the door and stepping into the cool air. It’s a relief, even if it smells like mud and destruction.

The two lumberjacks have disappeared. Jensen heads down the man-made dirt road towards the far quadrant. One asshole down, one to go. Sometimes he really hates his job.

* * *

At first, Jensen isn’t sure which tree the guy is sitting in. He heads out to the area Fuller indicated, but a cursory glance into the treetops doesn’t illuminate the object of all the trouble.

He knows he’s in the right place by the abandoned accoutrements of the job, industrial saws and so forth lying under bright blue tarps. That, and the trail of flattened foliage where trees have been felled and laid too long before being dragged off to the yard Jensen’s just come from. Random trees are marked chest-height with bright blue X’s to indicate they can’t be cut. Jensen knows, because he’s the one who put them there, back when he first moved up to the post, evaluating the trees on girth and age, positioning amongst corridors of fauna. A life-or-death sentence in two strokes of paint.

Sometimes, usually when there are big politics and media involved, it’s fairly obvious when a group of protesters are tree-sitting. They’ll erect great platforms in the trees upon which to sit and sleep, tarpaulins and metal shades to protect them from the weather. If it’s accessible enough, there’s usually a group milling around the base, supporting or gawking, bringing food and water, heckling. 

It’s not out of the question for a protester to be up a tree alone, but Jensen’s more used to hearing about small groups, taking turns to man the post in ones or twos. Alone up a tree for 24 hours a day, no access to food or amenities? Not easy. It’s a special brand of insanity.

He scans the trees above where the trail of stumps seems to indicate a halt in proceedings. No tarps or platforms are erected in the branches. In fact, there’s no sign of anything unusual at all. If it hadn’t come directly from the Senator, he’d be inclined to think someone is fucking with him. It could be Fuller’s idea of a practical joke, though not a smart one given Jensen will report back to the Senator. Then again, it’s not like the Senator will necessarily believe  _him_.

He’s about to turn around and march back to the yard when the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. 

Someone is watching him.

Unnerved, Jensen clears his throat, tries to glance around casually, to not look like he’s frantically searching back and forth for the person in question. “I know you’re up there,” he calls out, aiming for neutral, unfazed by being secretly watched. 

No response. 

“Seriously, dude. You might as well show yourself,” Jensen continues. 

There’s silence but for the chirping of birds and the dull sound of chainsaws in the distance. Jensen picks up a stick lying nearby and randomly pokes at the ground, turning over leaves. He’s as good at waiting as the next man.

“I mean,” he says, wandering over to the wide girth of an unmarked pine. “I came all the way out here, you know? It was a pretty long way.” He settles his back against the rough bark of the tree, crosses his legs at the ankle to wait for the long haul. “There were a lot of hills. Mosquitoes. Bear.”

He thinks he hears something at that, a soft huff of breath or snort of amusement. It’s too hard to tell which, but it was definitely close by.

“Coulda gotten eaten,” he says, alert to any sound that follows his words. The scuff of bark, break of a twig.

What he doesn’t expect is the soft, gravelly voice that comes from a few feet above his head. 

“You’re far too pretty to get eaten by a bear,” says the disembodied voice, and Jensen startles at the proximity, glancing straight up above his head. Directly into a pair of ludicrously blue eyes.

He jerks back from the tree and rounds on it, eyes zeroing back in on the man in the lower branches. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but whatever it was, the guy crouching easily on a branch is definitely not it. 

When the Senator had called him, when Fuller had berated him, he’d figured that by ‘protester’ they were referring to a sixty-year-old hippie reliving his days of pot and peace in the Bay area. He was expecting grizzled and sun-worn. Long hair, beard, dirt. Threadbare cotton and friendship bracelets.

This guy is definitely not that. He’s young, maybe Jensen’s age or a couple years older, and decidedly not grizzled or overgrown. Rather, his hair is dark and short, spiked and mussed like he’s caught it in twigs, which maybe he has. He’s stubbled, clearly doesn’t have access to a razorblade and shaving foam, but he isn’t quite able to plait his beard either. A light blue bandanna is tied around his wrist which, hey, is slightly hippiesh, but it could also be called metrosexual.

His body is lanky, lithe and compact through camouflage pants and a long-sleeved maroon V-neck, one of those black North Face feather-filled vests over the top. He’s muscled without being overly built, and Jensen can’t help but subconsciously compare the body type to his previous partners. Nowhere near as built as Jared, quite a bit broader in the shoulder than Chad.

Jensen shakes the inappropriate thought from his mind as quickly as it occurs to him. So not the time. “So you aren’t just a figment of my imagination, then,” he says.

The guy just stares at him and Jensen fights the urge to fidget under the intensity. Eventually the guy stands up on the branch. Jensen starts, worried he’s going to fall the twenty or so feet to the ground, but then he notices the harness low on the guy’s hips, the carabiner at his waist and twisted knots of ropes extending far up into the branches of the tree.

“You came prepared,” Jensen comments.

The guy shrugs, a casual roll from one shoulder to the other. “Not my first time.”

Jensen nods. “Clearly.”

“You’re not going to get me down, you know,” the man says in the same rough voice. Jensen wonders if he has a sore throat or a cold from living out in the not-so-warm Canadian wilderness for a couple weeks. Up a tree.

Raising his palms in a gesture of peace, Jensen nods. “Look, man, I get it. I like the fact they’re cutting down this forest as much as you do.”

The guy snorts and walks along the branch to the trunk as casually and easily as if he were on flat, safe ground. “I sincerely doubt that,” he mutters darkly.

“No really, I mean it,” Jensen says in what he hopes is an entirely cajoling and heartfelt tone of voice. “I went into the forestry service to save places like this.”

“Really?” the guy asks, leaning against the trunk of the tree and crossing his arms defiantly. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re the lumber industry’s bitch.”

Jensen bristles, feels the muscles in his back tighten and straightens his spine. “Hey, you don’t even know me.”

“Oh, I think I do,” comes the smug answer.

Jensen bites back the desire to tell him to fuck off; holds his tongue only in the hopes of a peaceful resolution to the situation. “Whatever.” He glances to the side and into the emerald mess of trees before looking back up to find the gaze of the man still boring into him. “Look, the fact is, you can’t be up there. You know it, I know it, so why not make all this a lot easier than it could be and just come down, yeah?”

The guy actually grins at Jensen’s words, a flash and spread of white gleaming teeth and taut lips. “Are you serious? That’s the best you’ve got?”

“I could just shoot you,” Jensen snaps.

The man laughs at that, a deep, throaty chuckle that slithers down Jensen’s spine inconveniently. “Touché.”

“Look, I get it. But you can’t just go about your cause by trespassing and breaking the law. It’s not the way to get things done.”

Even from the forest floor, Jensen can see the flash of anger that flickers through the guy, the way his arms drop from his chest to his sides, fingers clenched. “Oh? And I suppose you accomplish more your way, huh?”

“Hey, at least I have the guts to do things right, even if it’s a longer battle with little glory,” Jensen snaps back. If this guy wants a fight, he’ll get one. This is not how Jensen planned on spending the day and the guy has no right to judge him, particularly when he doesn’t even know him.

“Justify it however you like, Smokey. We both know the only reason this tree is still standing right now is because I’m in it.”

Which, yeah, Jensen knows is true, but it is so not the point. “Congratulations, man. You’ve saved one tree. What about all the rest of them?” Jensen asks, swinging his arms wide to incorporate the rest of the forest.

“Do you see them logging anything near here?” the guy asks pointedly.

“No, because they’re all logging over on the other side,” Jensen says. “Seriously, all you’re doing is hurting your cause.”

The guy rolls his eyes. “Whatever, I’m hardly going to sit and argue the merits of justice with someone on the payroll of big business,” he says, and examines the tree trunk to his side. With a hitch up he wedges the toe of his shoe into a crack in the bark, reaches his arms up and finds a similar crevice into which to jam his ludicrously long fingers, and starts climbing up the tree as easy as a ladder. The muscles in his thighs flex with the strain of pushing his body weight up

Jensen starts, angry at himself for losing control of the situation so quickly. “What you’re doing is hardly in line with justice,” he calls up, hoping to antagonise the guy into coming down.

He can hear the guy scoff even as he reaches the thirty-foot mark of the tree, pausing, one foot on a smaller epicormic branch. It’s not a branch that will support weight, and Jensen hopes the guy knows what he’s doing.

Sure enough, he takes the bait. “How can you even say that with a straight face?” he spits with venom, one arm snaked around the tree for support. “For fuck’s sake, how is it  _justified_  to cut down forest that regulates the world’s climate? The boreal forest is the second largest carbon storehouse on the planet, did you even realise that?”

Jensen did realise that; it’s pretty much his job, but he isn’t about to agree with the guy and send him, justified no less, back up his tree. “And we do what we can to protect it, but there’s gotta be some give and take,” he replies reasonably.

“I don’t see much giving,” the guy snaps. His hair falls into his face and he pushes it back angrily with his fingers, raking them through it. Jensen can see how it got to the state it’s in. “In fact, all I see is taking and justifying. And if I have to sit up a tree in order to get people to take notice of that, then I see it as my duty to do so.”

“Fine,” Jensen sighs. “But it’s my legal duty to stop you from interfering. And despite all the good intentions you shout about, sabotaging private property is illegal and bullshit and I can arrest you for it.”

The guy laughs bitterly. “Right. Because that’s clearly what I’m doing, being a terrorist and all,” he snaps and immediately starts back up the tree, cinching the ropes taut every for couple of metres he climbs.

Jensen looks on helplessly as the guy disappears into the canopy. He hits fifty feet and steps out onto one of the large cross branches, finding a secondary rope that Jensen didn’t even see earlier, anchored somewhere high above him. The guy fiddles with his harness, unclipping his original rope and clipping into the new one. For a second, he glances down at Jensen and, despite the height, Jensen feels he can almost see the brilliant blue of those eyes staring back at him. And then the guy jumps, Jensen’s heart leaping correspondingly into his throat. All that happens is that the he swings through the trees in a graceful arc into the branches of the neighbouring pine. Like Tarzan.

Moments later and the guy is gone, too high in the canopy for Jensen to see, swinging and crack-jamming his way upwards, dodging behind trunks and foliage. With a sigh, Jensen turns to hike back to the cabin. He doesn’t bother updating Fuller on his failure so far. He’ll come back tomorrow and try again with the mysterious tree-climber.

As he wanders back along the deer trail in the direction of home, his mind’s eye a muddle of sapphire glints and fluid limbs, he realises he never even asked the guy his name.

* * *

It rains overnight, and Jensen finds himself lying in bed as he tries to fall asleep, listening to the staccato hammering on the tin roof and wondering about the guy in his tree. Is he sheltered? Is he getting wet? Is it even safe up there with the wind howling through the treetops?

It’s ridiculous to be worried about some guy he met for ten minutes - a person he’s meant to be removing and arresting, no less. But the fact that this hippie wasn’t what he’d expected has thrown him. That the guy had been passionate but somehow sad and resigned is intriguing; it makes Jensen want to know more.

Of course it didn’t hurt that the guy is fucking hot. But, Jensen tells himself sternly, that’s neither here nor there.

The next morning he rises early and checks the various experiments he has cooking. He jots down some observations and measurements, but his mind is not really on the task. Finally, having done the bare minimum, checked on his email that is still stubbornly not working - ditto the phone - he resigns himself to the fact that he’s procrastinating again. 

Bob squawks at him from his cage in agreement. Traitor.

Rummaging around in one of the storage bins in the overcrowded kitchen, Jensen finds an old harness. He checks the straps for tears or wearing, but it seems solid enough. The carabiner isn’t rusted over, so it’ll do. He packs it into a rucksack along with a length of rope and a flip line adjuster. He doesn’t have climbing shoes, but he spots metal spikes in one of the bins that’ll fit over his boots.

He contemplates actually taking the shotgun off the wall rack, but decides not to, nor the Glock in the small chest above the fireplace. It might come to threats, but he doesn’t think they’re there just yet.

It takes him longer to get to the grove of trees where he’d last seen the tree-guy, even though he takes a more direct route, bypassing the camp. The ground is soft and muddy from the previous night’s rain, and he has to be careful not to slip and fall. It’s colder outside this morning, misty with fog. There’s no doubt winter is setting in early; Jensen’s readings of the previous data confirm it should be warmer this time of year, for at least another three weeks. In and of itself, it doesn’t mean much, but in the larger scheme of things,Jensen hopes it’ll add up with the rest of the data to indicate a fundamental shift in boreal forest temperatures and give them ammunition to stop cutting the damn thing down.

When he finally reaches the place where he last saw the ecoteur, he’s a little out of breath but, not seeing the guy, sits down on one of the felled logs left on the side of the makeshift track, a large gnarl of rot having led to its abandonment. He places his pack down beside him and waits.

Sure enough, not five minutes pass before he hears the whirring zip of rope through metal and a woosh of air as a body rappels down from one of the nearby pines. The guy lands gracefully on a branch with a slight bouncing on the balls of his feet before sitting back into his harness and swaying slightly, the tips of his feet keeping him from swinging out into the air. He’s wearing the same thing as yesterday, but he seems none the worse for wear for the night of rain.

The guy smiles slightly, just a barely there lift of the corner of his mouth. Despite their animosity and antagonistic roles, he seems happy to see Jensen. “Yogi,” he greets, amusement lacing his tone.

Jensen can’t help but smirk. “Well, that makes you Boo Boo, so I guess I'm not going to complain.”

“Back for another go at me?” asks the guy in that same gravelled voice as before. Jensen struggles not to hear the suggestiveness in the words.

“I’d settle for your name,” Jensen replies simply.

“Usually I’d expect a drink first.” The guy grins, rocking gently in the air, back and forth with little pushes of his toes against the branch. There’s no mistaking the lasciviousness in that sentence.

“I wouldn’t want to get it wrong on your arrest warrant,” Jensen deadpans. The guy can flirt all he wants and, secretly, Jensen kind of hopes he wants to quite a bit, but it doesn’t change anything about the situation at hand.

The guy is silent for a long moment, assessing Jensen mulishly. “Misha,” he says eventually, short and clipped.

“Pardon?”

“My name. It’s Misha,” the guy says, lifting the rope curled in his hand an inch and allowing it to slide through the metal, lowering himself the rest of the way to the branch. He lets out a bit more rope and sits down, straddling the branch and letting his legs dangle on either side.

“Ah,” Jensen says, aware he’s staring at how the guy’s... _Misha_ ’s thighs grip the tree between them.

“And you, Yogi?” Misha asks, “To whom do I owe the honour of my attempted arrest?”

“Jensen,” he says, neck craned upwards awkwardly.

“Ranger Jensen,” Misha mutters, “good to know.”

“So are we going to come down today, Misha?” Jensen asks, knowing the guy isn’t, but daring to hope nonetheless.

“I don’t know,” Misha says, his voice annoyingly sing-song despite the distaste lacing through it. “Are you going to come up today, Jensen?”

Jensen shrugs. He’d figured this might happen. “Sure.”

He stands up, noting, with satisfaction, the look of surprise that graces Misha’s face. He digs the harness and spikes out of his pack. Making sure he has the saddle the right way around, he steps in, slides the seatbelt-like material up over his cargoes. He belts it securely, tightens the leg straps.

“Seriously?” Misha calls down. 

Jensen looks up and allows himself a smug grin. “What, only room enough up there for one?”

Misha says nothing, watching as Jensen loops and clips in a rope on one hip. He hasn’t gone climbing in a very long time. Jared used to like indoor rock climbing, and he’d dragged Jensen along a couple times before Jensen finally got it through his ex’s head that he  _really_  didn’t enjoy heights, and begged off going. He can remember Jared’s disappointed look every Saturday morning when he left for the climbing gym.

Truthfully, he isn’t fond of heights. But it had had less to do with vertigo than it did the way Jared used to shuck off his T-shirt two minutes into the climb, revealing over-defined muscles to the ravenous pack of LA’s gay fitness scene. On purpose.

Jensen fits the spikes over his boots, straps the shin padding around his calves so the spurs won’t slip when he’s climbing. From the bottom of the pack he grabs the heavy duty gloves he carries at all times for moving logs or other lifting he might need to do. He hasn’t done much tree-climbing at all, only the course taught as part of his training a few years back. He hopes he can manage it without making a fool of himself. Or falling out of a tree.

Spurs on, he grabs the length of rope and makes his way to the bottom of the tree. Paying no attention to Misha watching from his lofty height, because if he does he knows he’ll lose his nerve, he takes the rope and loops it around the wide girth of the tree. Coming back full circle, he takes the other end and slides it through the adjuster clipped on his free hip. He adjusts the length so the rope hugs the tree, tethering him to its trunk from hip to hip.

With a deep breath and a silent prayer, he leans back to increase the tension in the rope and digs his left heel spur into the trunk. Doing the same with the right heel he begins to walk, slowly, carefully, up the trunk. Flipping the rope up higher around the trunk with each dug in spur, he inches upwards, careful not to look down at the ground shrinking below him.

Misha is only sitting twenty-five feet above the ground, but Jensen could swear it seems like fifty. It’s one thing climbing in the relative safety of a gym, mats spread on the floor in case of falls, Jared on belay keeping the line taut, but here there’s nothing to catch him, nothing to cushion the impact if he falls. It makes him a bit dizzy and he fights the mild panic that shivers, thready in his veins.

But then he’s there, on the level of the large, steady limb on which Misha is perched. He goes up a little higher and steps carefully down onto the branch. He lets out the tension on the rope enough to slide down the tree, sitting mirroring Misha, legs to each side of the branch and back firmly against the trunk. He probably looks a bit like an idiot, still tethered to the width of the tree, but he isn’t about to unclip this high up. He’s not suicidal.

Misha raises an eyebrow at him, and from this close, less than two metres separating them, the intensity of his stare is startling. Jensen barely contains the gasp that threatens to give him away.

“Nice climbing technique there,” Misha intones, sarcasm dripping.

Jensen feels his cheeks colour. “What? I got up here, didn’t I?”

Misha ‘hmms,’ and Jensen imagines he can feel the vibration along the tree. A quick glance confirms Misha’s climbing rig is a lot more complicated than his, ropes spliced and tied in ways Jensen doesn’t recognise.

“Remind me to teach you some modern climbing techniques sometimes,” Misha says.

“No offense, man, but there really won’t be another time. I have to get you out of this tree.”

Misha rolls his eyes. “I’m not leaving the tree. I have principles.”

“What, and the rest of the world doesn’t?” Jensen asks, trying not to let the annoyance bleed in.

Misha shrugs. “I’m not the one helping to deplete the earth’s natural resources.”

“Come off it,” Jensen argues. “It’s not that one-sided.”

Misha sighs, eyelids flickering almost closed as he considers his words. “It’s always one sided. Money equals progress and no one else gets a say. Did you know that a fifty percent reduction in logging in boreal forest would reduce carbon emissions equal to taking every car off the road in Canada?”

“It’s a nice fact. Really,” Jensen allows, waits for Misha’s gaze to return to his before continuing. “But what about the 900,000 jobs that would disappear if logging were stopped? What about the fact that, as humans, we need lumber for shelter and furniture and paper and an economy that works?” he argues.

“If the human race is too unimaginative to think up eco-friendly ways to co-exist, then maybe it needs to have its toys taken away,” Misha parries automatically, eyes flashing with anger.

“The human race isn’t a child, Misha,” Jensen defends.

“Isn’t it?” Misha asks, hands gesticulating in a way that makes Jensen nervous, makes him cling to the tree just a little bit tighter. “We’re sitting in a forest that houses over a billion songbirds and holds over a third of the world’s freshwater. Look around you. It’s fucking gorgeous and it’s  _ours_  to live in, yet we’re so caught up in our need for  _things_ , for money, we’re willing to destroy it! Does that sound like an adult choice to you? We want, we take and we don’t care about the consequences. All those shelters we build aren’t going to help much when it starts pouring down acid rain. When the icecaps melt and the oceans rise and the entire human race drowns. I just don’t understand how we as a people can fucking  _justify_  our own demise!”

Jensen stares at Misha as he rants, pink blossoming across his cheeks as his anger rises, the way his fists are clenched and his fingernails cause crescents of white bloodlessness in his palms. He’s so earnest. And so very, very hot. Jensen is completely fucked.

Jensen is also wearing a harness that does nothing to divert the eye from his potential hard-on. In fact, if he doesn’t get his libido in control, it will very nicely draw attention  _to_  it.  _Fuck_. 

“What’s more,” Misha finishes, drawing a deeply needed breath and visibly trying to loosen the tight set of his shoulders, “is I get the feeling I’m preaching to the converted.”

Jensen opens his mouth to say something, finds himself speechless and closes it again.

“Yeah,” Misha surmises of his silence. “And yet you’re willing to force me down and arrest me.”

Jensen feels like he’s been cast out without a net. He shrugs helplessly. “It’s my job, man.”

Misha lapses into silence and Jensen follows suit. He had meant to climb up into the tree and reason with the guy, not be persuaded into his line of thought.

“Well this is my job, too,” Misha finally says.

This is the point where Jensen should demand that Misha come down the tree with him. He knows it is. It’s the point where he should threaten or beg or call for reinforcements to forcibly remove this guy. Instead he finds himself searching for a way to stay up in the canopy, surrounded by emerald and jade, sap seeping from cracks in the tree and sticking his fingers together. A pair of bright blue eyes and mussed up hair; a straight nose and dimpled chin.

“Where do you sleep?” Jensen asks, reaching for a way to prolong the moment.

From the look of surprise that widens Misha’s eyes, parts his lips, he was expecting Jensen to order him down, too. “Um, in the tree,” Misha says, pointing up.

“I figured,” Jensen says. “But you can’t just lie up there on a branch. You’re not Spider-Man.”

“I have very good balance,” Misha smirks. He scoots forward on the tree branch into Jensen’s space, their knees almost touching where they straddle their coniferous mount. He reaches in and, for a moment, Jensen wonders what’s about to happen, but then Misha raises his arm and points to the treetop. “See that outlying branch? The one that kind of curves in the middle like a banana?”

It takes a moment, but Jensen finally spots it. “Yeah.”

“Look just below it. See that olive glimpse of material?”

“Yes?”

“Hammock.”

Jensen glances at Misha in surprise before back up into the branches. From here it doesn’t look much like a hammock or anything. “Seriously? You’re living in a hammock?”

Misha smiles. “No, I'm living in a tree. I just sleep in the hammock.”

“How the hell do you not fall out?” Jensen wonders aloud.

A chuckle, like before, that Jensen can feel behind his ribs. “Well, I keep myself clipped in. It’s not like I have a death wish.”

Jensen decides not to comment on that. “And it’s warm?”

Misha shrugs. “Warm enough. It covers over, so I stay dry. I can hear the wind in the trees, the creaking of wood. Owls. What more could a man want?”

Jensen can think of a few dozen things, not the least of which his oft-pined-for espresso maker.

“Don’t you get bored?” he asks. He’s a solitary person, but at least he has his work, his books and computer. Once in a blue moon he even has the internet and a connection with civilisation.

Misha sits back and something amused twists at his mouth. “There are things to do,” he says coyly.

Jensen arches an eyebrow. “Like?”

“Oh, you know,” Misha deadpans, but the spark of mischief in his eyes indicates he’s apparently glad Jensen has taken some ill-disguised bait. “You haven’t lived until you’ve jerked off at 150 feet and watched your come splatter through the branches.”

Jensen’s eyebrow arches higher; he’s pretty sure it must be in his hairline now. He swallows around the constriction of his throat. “I wonder if it’s like birdshit. Lucky or unlucky if it lands on your head.”

At this Misha grins downright ferally and Jensen physically restrains himself from shivering. “People are always lucky if my come is landing on them.”

“Oookay, then. You’re kinda weird, man.”

Misha just returns to his previous smirk. “So I’ve been told, though you don’t seem to mind.”

Jensen rolls his eyes, but he can’t seem to stop the way the corners of his lips tug upwards. “Really weird.”

“Still don’t seem to mind,” Misha says matter-of-factly.

Jensen sighs and turns the conversation back to serious. “I’d love to stay and chat all day up in the clouds, but I actually do have work to do. Saving the forest the slow way and all that.”

Misha looks at him, a frown creasing the skin above his nose. “I don’t get you. You seem to care just as much as me, and yet you choose to work for the enemy.”

“They aren’t the enemy.  _I’m_  not the enemy. It’s just a different way of going about things.”

“It’s a very ineffective way. Is it just because it’s easier?” Misha asks, and though he keeps his tone light Jensen feels the threat inherent in the words. 

So much for being turned on. The mood from a second ago evaporates like rain off sun-warmed leaves. “Easier? Seriously? Rangers suffer the highest rates of felony assault and homicide than any other branch of law enforcement. If I wanted an easier way to protect the earth I’m sure I could find it without much trouble.”

“So you say,” Misha says, a mixture of annoyance and sadness.

“Fuck you, man,” Jensen spits, Misha’s words wounding him more than they should. “It’s a lot harder than sitting on my ass in a tree like Peter Pan, I can tell you that much.”

Misha’s eyes go hard and grey. A shutter falls, closing off the previous window of emotion and Jensen immediately regrets his words, wants to lift the veil and have that warm curiosity turned back on him. He misses it like it was something he was used to.

“I think we’re done chatting for today,” Misha says.

Jensen scoffs. “You’re kicking me out of your tree?”

“Yes,” Misha shrugs casually, as if this is a perfectly reasonable turn of events. With all the grace of a gymnast he’s pressing his weight up on his palms, jumping onto his feet and standing up. The tree shakes with the movement and Jensen grabs onto the bark of the branch in a manner very reminiscent of flailing.

“By the way,” Misha says before Jensen can even begin to move, to stand and equalise their height or climb the hell out of the tree to safety. “Those spurs you’re using? They’re pretty fucking bad for the tree. In case you care.”

Misha turns on his heel, pulling the rope hanging above him taut as he goes, once again walking across the branch as if he isn’t hanging a fatal height above the ground. He reaches a cross-section with another branch and with cat-like grace jumps and grips onto it, hauling himself up by the sheer strength of his biceps.

“See you tomorrow then,” Jensen calls out to his back and gets no response.

Fuck, he thinks. Now he has to get down again.

* * *

The Senator calls again, this time in the middle of the night. Washington D.C. apparently doesn’t have clocks. Thankfully, Jensen doesn’t have a working satellite and the call is blessedly short. Still. Amongst the crackle and pockets of silence, he hears references to Fuller and destruction of property. The message is clear: either he gets Misha out of the tree, or he gets himself out of a job.

He falls back to sleep fitfully, the wind howling through the pines, wondering how on earth he’s going to get Misha down from the tree without shooting him.

* * *

The next morning a definite storm front has settled in. Jensen suspects it’s the reason behind the cold, windy weather that’s been increasing all week. The god of the Northern wind, Boreas, flexing his wings and sending an early squall down from the Arctic. The wind whips at the windows, howling through the trees. Every so often flickers of rain spatter the cabin’s roof in peppering noise, a child’s marbles thrown against the tin and immediately swept away.

Bob chatters nervously in his cage, feathers fluffing out at the rapping noise. 

Jensen frowns. “It’s alright, kid,” he soothes, pulling the blankets off the table where they’d pooled. “I think today might be a sleeping day, no?” He covers the cage back up, peeking at Bob’s wing as he stretches them with a little hop along his blanket. It’s healing nicely, and Jensen suspects it was either bruised or strained. He’ll be able to release him into the wild before too long.

The thought makes him somewhat sad, but it’s his job to protect the wildlife under his jurisdiction and keeping the bird won’t do Bob any favours. He loves nature, but sometimes it breaks his heart, just a little.

Speaking of his job. He has to get Misha out his tree. Naturally the day would be shitty with wind and freezing rain for added fun.

He adds a raincoat to his ensemble for the day and repacks the climbing gear. He hopes like hell he won’t have to climb a tree again, not in this weather. But he also knows he can’t leave without Misha coming down. And that might take force. To this end, he retrieves the Glock from the chest. It isn’t loaded. He won’t actually use it, never would, but a bit of posturing might be what it comes down to. As he prepares, he goes over the small amount of combat training he received; it’s not much and he doubts he’d be able to take Misha down if he doesn’t want to go, but he has to try.

The hike to the Abraxas site is miserable in the rain and Jensen tries as much as he can to zone out, staring at the ground, head bent and rain dripping from the hood of his raincoat in front of his eyes. It’s dark under the black clouds and tree cover and his eyes take awhile to adjust. His eye-line stays on his feet, trudging through mud and sodden pine needles, watching out for the inevitable tree roots to step over.

If it weren’t for the fact that he’s watching the ground so closely, he may never have seen it; a flash of metal out of his peripheral vision. He stops and steps back. Bending down, he can see the dull silver spike of a caltrop poking out from a blanket of brown pine needles.

Jensen frowns. Why would it be all the way out here? Traditionally the twisted metal spikes were used by eco-terrorists to stop logging trucks and other vehicles, the triangular formation of the hollow spike allowing it to puncture a tire but keep it from sealing against the ground to ensure the air seeps out. Or, with cruder ones made of twisted large-gauge nails, just to do enough damage to put a stop to things. But he isn’t on a road right now, in fact, the density of the vegetation around him means there’s no way a vehicle could get anywhere near where he is.

He wonders if maybe it’s been thrown out here or dropped accidentally, though the placement is wrong. The soft, brown dirt on  _top_  of the needles is confirmation that something, or rather, someone, has buried and then attempted to hide the device.

Which means it is here solely for one reason: to injure. 

The rain worsens, going from large, consistent splats against his coat to something with a bit more force behind it. In the distance Jensen can hear the rumble of thunder and he’s almost certain this is going to be a big storm, more than just the rain that’s been building all week. As he bends down and pulls the twist of metal out of the needles, lightning splinters across the sky, flashing the forest with an electric whitewash.

It’s then, in the split-second of brightness, he realises the brown of the pine needles is not just sodden leaf matter. It’s blood.

Anger surges through him so fast he almost feels sick. He yanks the caltrop out of the earth and scans the area for blood trails or worse. He can’t see any, and when the lightning flashes again he can see there isn’t a huge amount of blood. Whatever stepped on the metal didn’t get badly injured. Just injured badly enough.

“ _Fuck_!” Jensen snaps into the rain as it pours down around him making it hard to see.

He does a quick search of the area, just to make sure. There’s no injured animal lying around, so he can only assume that the animal - deer, lynx, fox, wolf, bear...whatever it was - wasn’t too hurt to get away. It’s probably fine, Jensen tells himself. 

If only that were true for himself.

He’s still seeing red. If Misha wants to sit in a tree and be a pain in the ass to people, that’s one thing, but taking it that step further, actively trying to sabotage equipment and worse, injure people and animals? That kind of thinking is unfathomable to Jensen and will never be okay. It’s the anger talking, but he almost wishes he’d brought those bullets.

The fury propels him the last mile of the hike at breakneck speed, his journey accompanied by the flashing of lighting and growl of thunder across the heavens. His boots are leaking and his socks are squelching and wet, but he doesn’t care. 

The stand of trees Misha’s inhabited comes into focus and Jensen marches towards them. Even from a hundred yards away, he can already see that Misha is sitting on one of the lower branches, legs crossed and clipped to a rope. He has an expanse of clear plastic draped over his head like a weird, see-through tee-pee, rivulets of water running down its sides. For once, he actually looks like the hippie Jensen expected to find three days ago.

The rain eases for a moment, replaced by a bitterly cold wind that rushes through the clearing and straight through Jensen’s clothes.

From his plastic cocoon, Misha watches Jensen’s approach, that almost-smile playing on his face as if amused to see Jensen back  _again_ , as if Jensen is a dog chasing his tail and doesn’t realise he’s never going to catch it. It pushes the anger up a notch.

“Is this really how you think you’ll change the world?” Jensen yells as soon as he’s within hearing range, brandishing the metal spike in his hand.

Misha lifts the plastic off his face like a bride lifting her veil. He squints to see what Jensen has and the rigidity that comes over his posture when he figures it out would almost be comical if it didn’t mean that Jensen was about to have a fight on his hands.

“The fuck?” Misha exclaims, surprised. At being found out, no doubt.

“I found this back there. It’s yours, right?”

Misha’s voice is flat, a venom of anger hiding in it, waiting. “Yes.”

“I can’t fucking believe you, sitting there, going on about saving the world and our precious fucking resources and - what, you think making a statement will help that cause along? Get you publicity or put a logger out of commission?”

“Why would I do that? That doesn’t even make sense,” Misha snaps, with the same forced calm. 

“No? Then why else? Enlighten me. Why plant this where an animal can - and has, by the way - get hurt?”

Confusion and pain flicker across Misha’s face and Jensen can’t help but gloat at having put them there. He knows it makes him petty, but there’s an animal out there that’s injured, and it’s Misha’s fucking fault. He deserves some of his own medicine.

“I didn’t plant it!” Misha says loudly, the calm disappearing as emotion rises.

“Right,” Jensen says sarcastically, “it just magically buried itself out in the woods.”

“Of course it fucking didn’t,” Misha snaps, “but it wasn’t me, either.”

“You just told me it was yours,” Jensen responds angrily as the wind whips around him, clawing at his coat with the sound of whispering plastic.

“It is!” Misha says, and this time it’s closer to an actual shout. He’s leaning forward on the branch, plastic covering starting to slip down his back. “But someone is fucking with you, man, or setting me up or, god... something! But I did not put that out there. I wouldn’t, and if you’d stopped to ask me rather than just accusing me out of your own prejudice, you’d know what I'm saying is true, damnit!”

Jensen wants to yell, to shout and snap and wound. But something makes him pause, even as he hates himself for giving Misha the tiniest benefit of doubt. “Go on,” he says, crossing his arms. The rain squalls around him, waves of heavier precipitation bashing against him.

“I can’t believe we’re having this conversation in the middle of a freakin’ typhoon,” Misha mutters. Or at least Jensen thinks that’s what he says, the wind whipping away every third word. “I’m a bio-centrist, Jensen.”

Jensen blinks and waits for Misha to elaborate.

“I believe every species on earth has equal worth - humans shouldn’t be privileged above any other,” Misha growls over the rumble of thunder that breaks across the clearing. 

“What, so animals and trees are more important than humans? That doesn’t mean you didn’t plant this to hurt loggers!” Jensen raises his voice over the wind, waves the caltrop around as if it will somehow illustrate his point.

“That isn’t the point of it, no,” Misha calls down. “It just means that anything, including humans, are part of something bigger. We all have our part. Anything destructive of any life, be it human or animal, is anathema.”

“You expect me to believe you’re gung-ho enough to sit up a tree and cause havoc to people’s livelihoods, but not extreme enough to physically hurt them if it means furthering the cause?” Jensen scoffs.

He expects Misha to argue back, to glare and yell, but he doesn’t. He looks at Jensen silently, rain dripping off his plastic shroud, and then says, simply, “Yes.” And the damnedest, stupidest part of the whole thing, is Jensen finds himself wanting to believe the guy. 

Lightning flashes overhead, way too close for comfort, and Jensen jumps. He’s about to demand that Misha gets down from the tree, at least until the storm passes, when he sees a figure marching towards them with a shotgun.

Fuller.

“I thought I told you to stay away, Fuller,” Jensen greets him with a growl and unconscious widening of his stance, stepping between Fuller and the tree in which Misha sits. As if it will do any good, Misha a good ten feet higher than any possible shield Jensen’s body will provide.

“I gave you ample time, Ranger,” Fuller menaces, swinging the shotgun from his shoulder into his hand. “I need to finish the season before winter, and now look at this,” he says angrily, waving the gun at the sky, the water bucketing down around them and turning the land to mud.

“The situation is in hand, Fuller,” Jensen says, trying to sound as authoritative as he can despite the fear ratcheting up the back of his throat. “I need you to leave,”

“I’m not going anywhere until this piece of trash-” he points the barrel of the gun in Misha’s direction and Jensen’s heart lurches, “-tells me where the fuck my boomers have gone.”

Jensen takes his eyes off the gun for a quick glance at Misha. From the look on his face, he’s just as confused as Jensen. “What are you talking about?”

“My day labourers. They’ve fucked off, and I can’t help but think your hippie friend here knows something about it.”

“Do you know something about it, Misha?” Jensen calls, keeping his gaze firmly on Fuller.

“Not a fucking clue,” Misha yells back.

“He says he doesn’t,” Jensen repeats calmly.

“What, and you’re just going to take this dickhead’s word for it, are you? I should have known you’d be as useless as a dog’s balls, Ackles.”

Jensen takes a step forward, his boot squelching hard in the mud. “I suggest you go back to camp, Fuller. Before you do something you regret.”

Fuller bristles more, the gun barrel tightening in his grip. “Are you threatening me, boy?”

“If I have to arrest you, I damn well will. Do you really want to test me? Do you think your contacts back in D.C. will take kindly to the knowledge you’ve been locked up for reckless endangerment? Think that’ll work in your favour when it comes time to renew the Abraxas contract?”

Steam practically pours from Fuller’s ears. He’s turned red in the face, despite the freezing rain that’s coming down heavier and heavier by the minute. “This isn’t over. You’ll be hearing from our lawyers. See how big you talk when you’re shipped back to the States to teach kiddies not to litter.”

Jensen wants to laugh. Despite the sick feeling in his stomach, the shocking amusement wants to fly up his throat and escape. By the time he’s forced it back down, Fuller has turned on his heel and is marching back the way he came. The effect is tempered somewhat at the way he keeps slipping in the mud and flailing to keep his balance. He hopes the safety on the shotgun is on. Regardless of Fuller’s hot air, Jensen knows he has to get Misha down from the tree. He can’t do much if Fuller decides to come back when he’s not here to intervene. He turns back to find Misha shucking off the plastic that covers him and getting to his feet on the branch. He’s probably about to climb back up. 

“Hey, why don’t you come down for now, yeah? We can talk further about your bio...stuff,” he calls to get Misha’s attention.

Misha laughs bitterly. He tugs on the plastic sheet but it’s caught on one of the branches further along, and even though he yanks on it angrily, it doesn’t move. Lightning flashes closer than before, almost on top of them; the thunder follows almost in tandem, deep and booming as it shivers through the pines.

“Seriously, if you’re going to get me out of this tree, you’re going to have to do better than that,” Misha yells over the racket of the storm, sidling along the branch to where the plastic is pinned. His voice has an angry calmness to it, as if the heavens aren’t coming down around their ears and there’s no reason to be dramatic.

Jensen growls and swipes angrily at the water dripping into his eyes. Why can’t it ever be fucking easy? “Come on, man. Just until the storm passes? It’s not safe up there, and it’s not like they can cut the tree down in the midst of a Category-5, you know? You can be up there again the second it lets up,” Jensen reasons loudly, even though he knows he’s lying through his teeth. If he gets Misha down, there’s no way he’s letting him back up again.

Misha pivots on the branch and even from the ground, through sheets of rain, Jensen can see the anger radiating from the guy. “You really don’t get it, do you? It’s not supposed to be fucking  _easy_. If it were, we wouldn’t have this problem in the first place. Everyone would be up a tree protecting it. But it isn’t, and they aren’t. I’m not letting a fucking bit of water stop me!”

“It’s hardly just a couple of drops-” Jensen begins but midway through his sentence he comes to a terrifying halt as lightning strikes once more,  _directly_  on top of them.

The arc of light hits the upper trunk of Misha’s tree, showering sparks of diamond and fire down through the foliage. The spire wavers, severed from the trunk, and with an ominous, creaking groan begins to topple. Misha is strangely silent, looking up into the tree with unnatural calm. The shout Jensen hears turns out to be his own.

He thinks he’s yelling at Misha to get out of the way, to move to the centre of the tree and safety, but Misha isn’t moving. The heavy trunk is crashing through the canopy, an easy tonne of wood and death breaking through enormous branches as if they were little more than twigs.

To Jensen it feels like hours as the severed limb smashes through the tree, loud cracks and smacks of timber against timber echoing through the clearing. It catches, a shuddering shake going down the trunk and vibrating along the forest floor as it wedges between a second Pine. The column of wood creaks and groans, pushing at its prison as if rebelling at being caught. 

It isn’t going to hold.

“Misha!” Jensen yells in the pocket of sudden silence, as loud as he can. “MOVE!”

Misha jerks as if shocked, as if he were the one hit by lightning, and he begins to inch towards the inner part of the tree. Jensen’s heart is in his throat at each step Misha makes, one foot in front of the other, only yards to go. 

Lightning strikes again with painful brilliance. It’s moved behind them now, but it’s loud and shocking and Jensen sees the fright it gives Misha, the second his foot comes down on the branch just an inch off target.

The second Misha falls.

Jensen half expects him to bounce, to be caught in the harness like he has every other time he’s not been anchored to the tree. To be fine. But it only takes a split second in the free-fall of Misha’s limbs for Jensen to realise the wayward path of the fallen trunk has taken out the branch to which Misha’s rope was tethered. There’s nothing holding him in the air. Jensen watches in horror as Misha flails for something to grab onto, as his legs smack at one branch and his arms another, falling and bouncing like a pinball through the tree.

Jensen’s running before he even understands the logic needed to animate his limbs, long strides planting him under the tree, beneath Misha’s trajectory. Misha wasn’t that high up, and the branches are slowing him, but if he hits the ground, he’s still as good as dead.

The last thing Jensen sees before bracing himself is terrified blue eyes, and then Misha hits him with the force of a freight train.

* * *

Minutes later, Jensen comes to. For a second he thinks he’s dead, unable to draw breath and pinned to the ground. And then his brain kicks in and he realises he’s just winded. He forces the panic down and waits the eternally long moment until his lungs release, blessed air filling them once more.

Misha is sprawled on top of him, heavy and unmoving.

 _Shit_.

He has to move him, to see what the damage is. If he’s… if he’s alive.

Struggling, he heaves the limp body off him into the mud and springy pine-needles. The rain continues to fall, a wall of horizontal water; Jensen’s clothes are soaked and water drips through his hair into his eyes.

A split-second check reveals his own body to be fine, nothing broken, though he’s sure he’ll be in a mess of pain later. Unable to spare any longer for a proper check, he turns to Misha. The wave of nausea that swells up in him is almost impossible to quell, but he manages. He doesn’t have time to retch right now.

Misha’s face is a red muddle of scratches, blood and bark fighting for dominance in the furrows. A gash across his right eyebrow smears rivulets of blood down the side of his face, but Jensen can tell it’s only superficial. He leans in, ear to Misha’s mouth, and is flooded with relief to find him breathing. Cold fingers to Misha’s neck find a pulse, sluggishly beating life through him.

Misha’s eyes flutter as he battles for consciousness, but rather than drag him into it like he wants to, to reassure himself, Jensen quickly checks him over for other injuries instead. 

His own body seems to have cushioned much of the fall, and hopefully prevented any breaks, though the drop through the branches may have done that anyway. Nothing looks out of place, there’s no weird angles to Misha’s limbs, no skin broken through with shattered cartilage or splintered bone. Jensen quickly examines further, lifting Misha’ shirt perfunctorily to look for punctured lungs. Miraculously, nothing seems wrong.

But when he gets down to Misha’s legs, mapping the contours of bone with his palms, he swears as he sees the dark blossom of black along Misha’s pant leg. Blood. Lots of it.

“ _Fuck, fuck, fuck,_ ” Jensen growls and gingerly pushes the torn material up Misha’s shin.There’s a gash running from ankle to knee, deep, blood oozing from it in a bright red warning of danger. Immediately, Jensen clamps his hand just above the cut, finding the main vein and pressing his thumb down tight to stop the blood loss.

Misha moans, and Jensen thanks the heavens the guy is at least alive. Misha’s eyes flicker and open, confused and cloudy. He blinks as the rain hits him, beading in his lashes and dripping down the sides of his cheeks into his hair.

“Mish,” Jensen asks softly, unconsciously shortening his name into familiarity. Well, hell, he did just save the guy’s life.

“Urgh,” Misha responds, grimacing as he tries to move.

“No, wait, man. Don’t move. You’ve cut your leg pretty bad.”

“Hurts,” Misha grunts and Jensen’s heart goes out to him at the pain he hears laced through the word.

“I know. But you gotta let me stop the bleeding, okay?” Misha makes another noise, closes his eyes against the rain. Jensen decides he’ll take it as permission to do what he needs to.

He spots the bandanna around Misha’s wrist and with cold cramping fingers pulls at the wet, muddy knot of it. It comes free, finally, and Jensen moves the pressure off Misha’s leg, threading the blue cotton under and around. He can’t and won’t make it a tourniquet, knows enough about survival medicine to know it should almost never be attempted. So far as he can tell, Misha hasn’t nicked an artery, and as long as it slows the bleeding it should be enough. He hopes.

What he really needs to do, he knows, hands trembling as he replaces the pressure of his fingers below Misha’s knee, is to wait, to stop the ooze of blood. But the rain is like sharp needles of ice on his back, and Misha could be in shock for all he knows. They can’t stay out here. He briefly considers going back to the Abraxas site, but with a sinking feeling realises they can’t. He doesn’t trust Fuller, the anger in his eyes, the spite. The gun. He won’t put Misha further at risk.

Which means they have to get to the cabin. The cabin, which is miles away. 

Jensen wants to cry out in frustration at the futility of it all, the horrible mess of blood and mud and icy rain. But he can’t afford to break down right now. Despite the impossible nature of the task ahead, it’s up to him to get them through it.

Tightening the bandanna enough to provide pressure, he moves up Misha’s body and over him, shielding his face from the rain with his body. He shakes Misha’s shoulder gently and Misha’s eyes flicker open, quicker this time, filled with pain and, strangely, absolute trust that makes Jensen’s stomach flip.

“Mish, I need you to help me get you out of this rain, okay? Do you think you can walk?”

* * *

It turns out Misha can. Or at least he can hobble, leaning heavily against Jensen and whimpering as his leg jostles. Jensen doesn’t know how they manage the walk; it must take them at least three hours to get back to the cabin, squelching through mud, drenched with water and falling leaves, bitten raw by the wind that slices through the trees.

After the first half hour it’s all a blur of grey and the roaring wind and thunder crawling south. Misha is a heavy presence at his side, Jensen’s arm across his back and under his arm, taking as much of the man’s weight as he can and still be able to walk. On and on they crawl, slipping and sliding through black dirt and saturated trees. Jensen nearly whimpers himself when he finally glimpses the solid shape of the cabin.

Misha is shivering bodily against him, great wracking shudders that make him moan. His skin has gone white and pasty and Jensen’s worry is ratcheting up inside him. He shoulders the door open, oblivious to the surprised shrieks and wing beats from Bob’s covered cage at their sudden intrusion.

For a moment he doesn’t know what to do first. Clean the wound, call for help, get Misha warm, panic? Shaking himself, he decides the first step is to put Misha down, so he grunts, “This way,” and half-carries, half-pulls Misha to his small bedroom. Misha gratefully sits on the bed, and Jensen can tell he’s trying hard not to fall over in a heap.

“Okay, Mish, we gotta get you dry, and I have to clean your wound. Then you can sleep, alright?” Misha nods, eyelids half-closed. Jensen hopes he didn’t get a concussion on his way out of the tree; he’s managed to make it all the way to the cabin without passing out, at any rate. 

Quickly, Jensen shrugs out of his coat and sodden windbreaker, slinging them with a wet  _thwack_  into the corner of the room. He darts into the bathroom and grabs the first-aid kit and all the towels he can find.

Misha is slumping, shivering in little wracks of pain, and Jensen knows he has to work fast. He rubs a towel quickly through his own hair before taking it to Misha’s head, rubbing briskly and quickly to remove the majority of the water. Misha moves with him and he has to place a hand on his shoulder to keep him still.

Towel discarded, he sets to work on Misha’s clothes. The vest unzips easily and joins the wet pile. Under it Misha's wearing only a woollen long-sleeve shirt, undoubtedly warm when dry, but wet, not so much. The material is cold and clammy and sticks to Misha's skin as Jensen tugs at it, lifting it up his pale torso.

Any other time and he’d stop to stare, to map the gently defined musculature of Misha’s chest and arms, muscles built from climbing, not the false exaggeration of weight-lifting. Misha’s body is designed for agility and strength, lithe and compact versus the round fullness of body-built muscles for power and show. Jensen wants more than anything to learn those curves and cords as they’re revealed to him, but now is most assuredly not the time. If there even ever will be.

Shirt successfully over Misha’s head, Jensen grabs his dressing-gown from the back of the door and pulls it around Misha’s shoulders, helps him get his arms into the sleeves. Misha allows the manhandling without comment.

“Not to be lecherous, but I have to take your pants off now,” Jensen says, suddenly not wanting the silence that has encroached and wrapped them, tomb-like, in its grasp.

He thinks Misha might huff a laugh at that, but it’s hard to tell between the chattering of his teeth. “I th-think I’d r...r-rather you  _were_  lecherous,” Misha gets out and Jensen hadn’t realised how glad he’d be at the other man’s ability to joke.

Jensen snorts, amused. “Maybe later, when you’re not in danger of hypothermia, yeah?” he teases.

Misha smiles, small, but definitely amused. “Will h-h-hold you to th-that.”

Preliminaries aside, Jensen gets to work on Misha’s pants, keeping his movements efficient and professional as he unzips and untucks. He pushes Misha gently with a palm on his chest, lying him down so he can pull the sodden material down and off his legs. Misha gasps as the heavy pants come off over the injured leg, and Jensen grimaces but keeps going, needing to get it off to assess the damage. He leaves Misha’s pants around his ankles, not wanting to free him from his boots until he’s dealt with the injury

It’s a mess of blood and dirt and Jensen knows he has to clean it if it’s to remain uninfected, though he worries it’s already too late. Carefully he unties the bandanna from under Misha’s knee. Blood begins to ooze immediately, but it’s slow and goopy and Jensen thinks it’s just a leftover pulse ooooof plasma held in by the bandanna, rather than fresh flow. 

“I’m really sorry, Mish,” he says, thoroughly perplexed by his ease at the nickname, “but we have to get this clean. It’s gonna hurt.” Misha groans, but Jensen ignores it. “I’ll be right back, just lie there and don’t try to move, okay?”

Jensen doesn’t wait for a response. He goes straight to the kitchen, flipping on the stove and setting the kettle of water on it. He grabs a box of salt from one of the haphazardly stocked cupboards and dumps a fair portion of in with the water. He has saline solution already made up for some of his experimental work, but not much. He’s going to need more, possibly a lot more.

Leaving the water to boil, he heads into the main room, flicks the switch to start the propane heater and turns it up high. He has to be careful not to run out of gas too early this month, but he’ll worry about cold showers in the dark later. For now they need the warmth. He grabs the bottle of sterilised saline from the shelf above his desk. Upon further consideration, he also grabs the bottle of Vodka.

Misha is right where he left him, clutching his arms across his chest, calves dangling over the side of the mattress. It doesn’t look very comfortable, but it’ll have to suffice for a few minutes more. Setting the Vodka down to the side, just in case he needs more liquid to sterilize the wound or to calm his nerves, he uncaps the bottle of salt water. 

“Hold still,” he mutters and begins to pour the solution over the gash. 

Misha jerks but stays relatively still as Jensen washes the wound. A slurry of dirt and blood runs in rivulets to the floor and Jensen absently pulls over one of the discarded towels to catch the mess. Under the blood the wound is less deep than Jensen initially feared. He continues to wash it until all the specks of dirt flow out in the salty brine.

“Almost done,” he says quietly, as he grabs a clean towel and pats Misha’s leg dry as gently as he can. The first-aid kit has lots of bandages; it’s the majority of what the damned thing is made up of, really. He grabs some butterfly bandages and places them along the line of the cut and then follows with a large general-purpose bandage, strapping it carefully over the wound to prevent infection from the outside.

Satisfied for the moment that the leg isn’t going to spontaneously fall off, Jensen fishes some painkillers out of the kit and pops two out of the bottle. He hands them to Misha, who gratefully swallows them down without even waiting for Jensen to fetch water. Immediacies aside, he grabs a washcloth and the saline and gently washes the scratches on Misha’s face and scalp, hating the grimaces that mar the other man’s face as the salt stings. He’s quick as he can be, and is relieved to find they’re all superficial.

Jensen surveys Misha lain out in front of him: he’s still half-naked, a pair of clammy, wet briefs and his pants around his ankles like some debauched drunk.

“I need to get you into bed, man. Have to get the rest of your things off,” he says, gestures at Misha’s naked legs.

“Okay,” Misha mumbles and Jensen can hear the sleep curving around the vowels in his mouth, gratified the chattering has stopped.

Misha, though, makes no move to help, and so Jensen sets to divesting him of the last of his clothes, undoing the laces of his climbing shoes and easing them off his feet best he can without pulling on the wound. Socks and pants follow, adding to the pile of wet clothes in the corner.

He contemplates leaving the briefs, but only for a second; they can’t be comfortable and they’ll have to go. He leans over Misha’s half-asleep body and hooks his fingers under the elastic, pulling gently down over his cock, sliding behind to drag the elastic under the swell of Misha’s ass. Down and off his legs, and Misha is naked but for Jensen’s charcoal dressing gown. Misha’s eyes are closed and his breathing even; if he isn’t asleep, he’s close to it. 

Jensen will have to wake him once every short while to make sure he isn’t concussed, but for the moment he can catch some much-needed time to recuperate. He allows his eyes to gaze over Misha’s body, the pale expanse of skin, strong muscled legs and calves. The way his cock lies against his thigh, nestled in dark curls.

Yeah. Jensen would like to get to know this body lain before him, if he’s given the chance.

For now, though, he needs to look after the body in question. Gently, he slides an arm under Misha’s shoulders and one under his hips, and with a bit of manoeuvring pulls Misha up the bed and places his head on a pillow. Misha murmurs but doesn’t wake and Jensen tugs the covers from under him, tucks them up and around his sleeping form.

Misha’s head is dark against the pillows, face scratched but unmistakably strong beneath the redness. High cheekbones, straight nose and smooth brow, a soft scratching of stubble darkening his jaw.

Jensen grabs some clothes from the closet and switches off the light. Closing the door behind him, he heads for the shower.

* * *

Jensen’s sleeping on the couch, restless and a little cold even under a tonne of blankets, when he hears noise coming from the bedroom. At first he thinks it’s his sleep-addled brain playing tricks on him, or an echo of the soft snuffling noises coming from Bob’s cage.

The second time he hears it clearer: a low, anguished murmuring.

He’s on his feet and at the door to the bedroom in seconds, pushing it open and stepping into the darkness. Misha is a lump of blankets in the middle of the bed, and Jensen can hear the litany of troubled mumbling.

“Fire, so much fire,” Misha is saying, followed by a cry of, “Matt, stop!”

Jensen moves in and gropes in the dark for the lamp on the nightstand. Its warm glow bathes the room as he clicks it on. 

Misha doesn’t wake like Jensen expects, though, and a glance explains why, with a worrying lurch of Jensen’s stomach. Misha is covered in sweat, literally dripping with it, face flushed and his hair plastered to his scalp.

“Shit,” Jensen exclaims, hands going to the blankets and unwrapping the mummy-like constriction into which Misha has wrapped himself. The dressing-gown is sodden and Misha begins to shiver the second the cooler air hits his damp skin.

“Jensen, no... Matt,” Misha whimpers and Jensen startles at hearing his own name in the delirious rant. It makes his stomach skip in a way reminiscent of junior high. 

Pushing it away, Jensen goes straight for Misha’s leg and can see from the yellowing colour of the bandage that the cut is infected. 

“Alright, Misha,” he half-whispers into the room. “This is gonna hurt like hell.”

Misha replies, though not to Jensen. “I didn’t, you have to believe...don’t turn me in, man. Fire, Jensen, _fire_.”

Shaking the guilt at that particular line of rambling, Jensen darts back into the kitchen to fetch the new batch of solution he made earlier and, grabbing another towel, he returns to the bedroom. Pulling the bandages off confirms the infection and Jensen sets to cleaning it again, removing the clotted blood and pus. He tries to ignore the whimpers of pain Misha makes in his delirium, the mutterings of,“See, I told you, Matt. Why did you do it? That’s not what we do, you said...” and the soft mewls as Jensen flushes the wound with antiseptic. By the time he’s finished, wound cleaned and re-bandaged, Misha is blessedly quiet, his mutterings dulled down to the occasional “Matt, no...”

As much as he doesn’t want to, Jensen has to wake him, because Misha needs more pain-killers in him to bring down the fever. He also needs to change the sheets. Misha blinks into consciousness, but he’s barely there, blue eyes dimmed grey and focusing on some imaginary, distant scene. 

Jensen knows it’s a dangerous situation. He’s already tried the phone six or seven times since returning to the cabin, trying in vain to get through to organise a med-evac. He doubts that even if he gets through they can get here, the storm raging on outside and showing no signs of abatement, but he has to try. All he got was crackle.

Misha lets Jensen move him around like a rag doll, swallowing the pain pills and antibiotics Jensen gives him with some water, rolling back and forth as Jensen removes the wet dressing gown, remakes the bed with clean, dry sheets and tucks him back in, naked. He drags one of the chairs in from the living room and settles in next to the bed with a blanket to watch over him.

When he’s sure Misha is sleeping and not about to wake, he lets himself wonder who Matt is, and what he might mean to Misha.

* * *

The next time Jensen wakes, he has a crick in his neck that threatens to drive him into hacking his own head off, and he’s fucking freezing. Outside the rain has stopped, but the wind continues to rip through the forest in whistles and howls. Dim light filters in from behind the curtains, but it can only be 5am at the latest.

Rubbing his eyes with his knuckles to clear his vision, he looks to Misha. He can’t quite see enough to make out if he’s doing okay, though there’s no delirious mutterings like earlier. Knees creaking, he gets to his feet. His toes are so cold they feel numb. At some point the blanket decided the floor was a better place to spend its time and left Jensen with nothing more than his sweatpants, socks and t-shirt to protect him from the cold. They hadn’t done the best job.

He shuffles closer to the bed and when he can make out Misha’s features, because a finger up the nose of a virtual stranger wouldn’t go down well, he places his palm against Misha’s forehead. It’s warm, perhaps too warm but not burning, and dry. Misha’s hair is also dry, sticking up in tufts and flattened in other parts.

He doesn’t know why he does it, and if pressed, he’d definitely be claiming insanity, but Jensen lets his fingers travel up off Misha’s forehead and into his hair, fanning through the soft spikes.

Which, naturally, is when Misha’s eyes fly open.

“Nnngh,” Misha groans, and Jensen’s hand flies back as if burned. “Cold.  _Fuck._.”

“Sorry, man,” Jensen says apologetically. “Was just checking your temperature.” He hopes to god Misha buys the lie.

“Why are you so cold?” Misha mumbles accusingly, as if Jensen has touched him with fingers made of ice on purpose.

Jensen finds himself smiling faintly; if Misha is well enough to grumble at him, then the danger has passed for the moment. “Because someone is in my bed,” Jensen points out. Misha grumbles something that at least sounds apologetic. Jensen grabs another of the antibiotics from the nightstand. “Seeing as you’re awake, it’s time for another of these.”

He helps Misha sit up and hands him the glass of water he’d left earlier. Misha swallows but grimaces as Jensen’s fingers brush his own to take back the glass. “Seriously, you’re like fucking ice.”

“Sorry,” Jensen replies, setting the glass back down. He makes to move to the door to get his dressing gown, before he remembers it’s soiled and in the pile of wet clothing he moved to the bathroom floor earlier, awaiting laundering.

“Get your ass in the bed,” Misha mumbles, eyes already closed and pulling the covers up as he shifts back down to the pillow.

“Uh,” Jensen begins. “I’m not sure that-”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Misha huffs. “You probably saved my life. Least I can do is let you share your own bed. Don’t be such a pussy.” 

Still, Jensen hesitates.

“Fucking get in the bed, Jensen,” Misha growls.

Jensen knows he’s only agreeing because he’s seen the body under those covers, that were it any other person he’d be swearing impropriety until blue in the face, but he elects to succumb to Misha’s logic. Leaving his clothes on, he moves around to the other side of the bed and carefully climbs in.

It’s warm, the heat of another person and Misha’s slight temperature almost scalding compared to the frozen tundra outside the covers, and Jensen shivers as feeling begins to return to his extremities. He’s never experienced another body in this bed, isn’t sure there’s ever been more than one person on this mattress ever, actually. It reminds him of how nice it was, to have someone to share a bed with, a life with, all those months ago.

A respectable distance between them and a confusion of whirling thoughts in his head, Jensen is asleep in minutes.

* * *

 


	2. Chapter 2

The third time he wakes, it’s mid-morning, weak sunlight slanting in through the window. The respectable distance is still between him and Misha and he’s being watched.

“It’s generally not polite to stare at people while they sleep,” Jensen mutters before closing his eyes again. All he gets in reply is a non-committal  _‘hmm’_. He opens his eyes again. “How are you feeling?”

Misha smiles wryly. “Like I got run over by a truck.”

“Your leg?”

Misha grimaces. “Hurts like a motherfucker. But I think it’ll be okay,” he says, eyes boring into Jensen. “Thank you.”

Jensen fights the urge to duck his head, avert his gaze. “S’my job,” he says instead. 

Misha’s eyes narrow in what Jensen is pretty sure is a physical manifestation of mental cogs turning. “I’m pretty sure this goes above and beyond your job description, but whatever.”

Jensen shrugs and pulls the covers around him just a little tighter. “We’ll need to watch it. You were touch and go last night.”

Misha cocks his head, or tries to, given it’s still planted fairly firmly into one of Jensen’s pillows. “I was?”

Jensen isn’t necessarily surprised at this ignorance. “Yeah, you had a fever and were pretty delirious for awhile there.”

“Hope I didn’t do anything embarrassing,” Misha comments, sounding amused.

Jensen debates for less than a second, which, in retrospect, is probably not long enough. “No. Just a lot of muttering about a ‘Matt’.”

“Oh,” Misha says and his voice has fallen flat, eyes shuttered.

“I take it I shouldn’t ask, then,” Jensen says gently, though he’s intrigued at the visceral response.

Misha pulls the blankets up around his chin and Jensen is reminded that he’s naked underneath them. “I’d rather you didn’t, no.”

“Okay.” Jensen shrugs as if it doesn’t bother him. “But so you know, you also talked about me in your delirium.” That gets Misha’s eyes back open, he notes with amusement. 

“I did?”

“Yup,” Jensen says and can’t help but grin smugly.

“Oh god,” Misha groans and Jensen feels a warmth pool low in his belly at the red flush that comes to Misha’s cheeks. He hadn’t said anything more than Jensen’s name, and implied he was going to turn him in, but clearly Misha thinks it could have been far more revealing. “Please don’t tell me I hit on you or something.”

“Wish I could,” Jensen says with a laugh, “but sadly, no. You seemed concerned I was going to turn you in to the authorities.”

“Sadly, really?” Misha asks with a slight leer that is strangely non-perverted. 

Jensen shrugs again, but isn’t sure he should say anything more. “Interesting,” Misha says softly.

“Is it?”

“Yes,” Misha says.

“I will have to turn you in, you know,” Jensen says, because he feels he has to.

It’s Misha’s turn to shrug. “I figured. Thought you would have done it already. Was sure I’d be in handcuffs when I woke up, not naked in your bed. Not that I’m complaining...”

“Phone’s down. But I can break out the handcuffs if you want...”

Misha laughs, unexpected and brilliant, eyes and nose crinkling and teeth flashing white. The bed vibrates with the feel of it and Jensen smiles to himself, admittedly a little proud of provoking such a reaction. “Maybe later.” Misha smiles, but Jensen can see the weary tilt to it.

“You should get more sleep, man.”

Misha nods. “I’m a bit knackered, yeah...”

“Here,” Jensen says, ignoring the odd word choice and sliding out of the bed to grab the next round of antibiotics. “Take these and get some rest. I have stuff to do anyway. I’ll just be in the other room if you need anything.”

“Okay, yeah,” Misha agrees, eyelids already starting to droop. 

* * *

That afternoon, Jensen helps Misha clean the wound again, sitting on the lid of the toilet with Jensen kneeling before him, and is glad to see that, although the flesh is pink, it isn’t the angry red of last night. Misha’s still sleepy, but much more alert than earlier. He dutifully sticks his leg out, heel resting on one of Jensen’s thighs. Jensen knows it hurts as he pours the warm saltwater down the wound, but he doesn’t make so much as a gasp. The tight clench of his jaw, however, muscle jumping along Misha’s cheek, tells another story.

Jensen’s as quick as he can be, but re-applying the bandages is gonna hurt regardless. He tries to deflect Misha’s attention away from the pain. “So how’d you get into eco-terror?” Jensen asks casually, choosing words that will provoke.

Sure enough, Misha grits out a clipped, “I didn’t. I’m a civil-disobedient.”

“Like Ghandi?” Jensen smirks, rummaging in the first-aid kit for the antibiotic cream he knows is lurking in there.

Misha rolls his eyes, but the grimace of pain has been replaced with annoyance. Jensen counts it as a win.

“So,” Jensen continues, dabbing on the cream with a sterile wipe, “before you fell spectacularly out of your tree, you were saying something about bio-centrism?”

Misha nods, and Jensen can feel his heel jerk slightly against his thigh, slipping slightly lower in a way Jensen is not going to think about, a warm press of bone and skin against him. “Yes, deep ecology. What about it?”

“Tell me about it,” prompts Jensen.

“What about it?”

Jensen shrugs, dropping the wipe in the trash and setting to open up new bandages. “Anything. Why does it mean you sit up a tree?”

Misha sighs. “It doesn’t. It’s about ecology. Ecosystems. There’s only so much natural ecosystems can take from human interference before they start to suffer. Bio-centrism is the idea that all animals have their own systems and parts to play, lives to play out. None of those are more important than anything else. Why should humans get to ruin the fate of all others, not to mention ourselves?”

Jensen ‘hmms’ thoughtfully, sticking the butterfly tabs across the cut. “That’s a pretty big philosophical question for one person to know the answer to.”

“That’d be why it’s called ‘deep’ ecology. The point is to ask the hard questions.”

“What are the shallow ones then?” Jensen asks, pleased Misha’s attention is elsewhere as he finishes up the butterfly bandages and reaches for the larger dressing.

Misha snorts and Jensen glances up to catch an eyeful of sad amusement. “Honestly? The things you do for a living. Fighting pollution, global warming, any kind of environmentalism that aims to preserve the earth for humanity and capitalism’s gain.”

“You think those aren’t worthy goals?” Jensen asks as he finishes strapping the bandage and letting his fingers linger on the bony protrusion of Misha’s ankle.

“I think those goals are what got us into this mess in the first place,” Misha says seriously, holding Jensen’s gaze. “I think we need to ask bigger questions.”

“Seems to me like sitting in a tree doesn’t really accomplish that, though,” Jensen says, and he doesn’t mean it as belittling, just curious.

Misha shrugs again and his eyes flicker away to the side. “Maybe not. But at least I’m doing something that accomplishes something in the  _now_.”

Jensen places Misha’s foot on the floor and stands, offering a hand to help Misha back up again. Together they hobble back into the bedroom and Misha sits down on the bed heavily.

“Not to be a dick, Misha, but wouldn’t that mean that deflating a few tires, pouring sugar in some gas-tanks, would accomplish even  _more_  in the so-called ‘now’?”

Misha’s jaw clenches, cheek jumping once more, but this time Jensen doesn’t think it’s to do with the pain of his leg. “Some people would like to think so,” he says and it comes out bitter and acidic.

* * *

The next day, Misha is up to hobbling around the house on his own, a fact Jensen discovers when he wakes from his night’s sleep on the couch to find Misha staring at Bob and Bob staring at Misha. Silently.

And that will never not be creepy.

Throughout the day Jensen sits at his desk, writing a report while Misha naps on and off. During his non-nap times Misha makes his way slowly around the house, hopping and supporting himself on furniture as he goes, cataloguing the bits and pieces of detritus collected over thirty years of park ranger residence. He fixes his attention upon every item as if he were in Ali Baba’s cave of treasures. At some point he discovers a box of old paperbacks and sets up camp on the couch, avidly devouring what look to be terrible, trashy romance novels.

Every so often Jensen pauses in his writing, rubbing at his eyes or stretching his arms overhead, only to find Misha watching him, a strange, bemused look on his face, book in his lap forgotten. Part curiosity, part...something else. It makes Jensen’s spine tingle.

When Jensen smiles, a small indication of welcome, Misha just grins and goes back to his book.

If it weren’t so absolutely ludicrous, and if it weren’t for the fact that Misha is a fugitive Jensen will have to turn over to the authorities, he’d almost say the shy smiles and furtive glances were...well, _courting_.

While Misha naps, again, a combination of painkillers and antibiotics and a series of dark bruises that have blossomed on his arms and legs, Jensen does laundry. Tries to go about life as if nothing is different. It’s surprisingly easy, except for the part where he keeps just  _looking_  at Misha as he sleeps, like some kind of infatuated stalker.

The weird part is, he doesn’t think Misha would so much as  _mind_.

* * *

“So why are you all the way up here in Nowhere, Canada?” Misha asks as Jensen helps him peel potatoes for dinner that night.

“Long story,” Jensen evades, busies himself pulling out pots and pans from the cupboard under the sink.

Misha laughs and waves his potato-peeler at the room to indicate he’s not going anywhere. “I have time, Jensen.”

Jensen sighs. “If you must know, it was because of a guy.”

“Reeeaaally,” Misha wheedles, amused. “Hot Canadian Mountie catch your eye?”

“Hot American boyfriend caught someone else’s eye,” Jensen mutters, absolutely sure he doesn’t want to go into the details.

“Ah,” Misha says, and his tone has dipped from fun into sympathy. 

“Yeah,” Jensen agrees. “Don’t worry. It isn’t some sordid, cheating-spouse story. Jay was... he was great, actually. But I wasn’t really what he wanted in a boyfriend. Apparently there were better, more suitable models available. Ones that would wear designer clothes and go where the ‘it’ people went, were part of ‘the scene’.”

Misha frowns, grooves lining his forehead in a way that makes Jensen’s fingers itch to smooth it back out. “That’s ridiculous.”

Jensen’s shoulders stiffen. “Is it?”

“As if there’d be any reason to leave with you at home,” Misha says matter-of-factly, with no trace of acknowledgement that strangers don’t just go around saying things like that to each other.

Jensen feels his cheeks heat and he turns away, running water from the gravity well into the saucepan at the sink. “Whatever,” he replies, aware it isn’t the most mature, intellectual response one can think of.

When he turns back, Misha is smiling. “So you ran away to Canada?”

Jensen chuckles softly, even though it’s still a sore spot for him. He sits down across the table from Misha and pulls one of the unpeeled potatoes from the pile, grabs a vegetable knife and starts peeling. “Not at first,” he admits. “We were going to try and make it work as friends, best of intentions, all that shtick.”

“Didn’t work?” Misha asks.

“No, not really,” Jensen says, shaking his head. “All our friends were just that... _ours_...and whenever we went out, Jared was there. He was...good looking. Never had a problem finding dates. It was too hard.”

“You could have just found new friends...”

“I could have, yes,” Jensen agrees. “But I hated my job, cooped up in a lab, arriving before sunrise, leaving after dark. 24/7 in a box with white walls. It’s not why I got into forestry.”

“Why  _did_  you go into forestry?” Misha studies him unabashedly, head tilted. 

“Oh, you know, all those grand illusions of saving the world.” Jensen laughs bitterly. “Somehow I think you might end up doing more of that than I ever do.”

Misha shakes his head quickly. “That isn’t true.”

“Maybe,” Jensen says, and almost believes it. He can feel the black tentacles of a maudlin mood taking him over and quickly changes the subject. “So what about you...Why are you out here at an obscure and not even major logging site, when you could be saving the redwoods or something down in sunny California?”

Smiling wryly, Misha asks, “Would you believe it was also because of a boy?”

“Matt?” Jensen posits.

“Matt,” Misha nods. “We weren’t together. Not like that. Though he was amazingly hot. Like Clark Kent in a body built from the gods. Anyway. But he was my mentor, sort of.”

“In tree-sitting?”

“Amongst other things,” Misha allows. “I met him in Cali. I was bumming about on the beach, being a hippy and getting high. The usual. I left school before getting my GED, so it’s not like I had much of anything else to do. Matt came down for an environmental protest. I can’t even remember what it was now…Save the whales or dolphins or something. We got to talking, he was just so...intense, you know?” Misha says, eyes flicking up to Jensen’s for confirmation that he understands. “Intelligent and passionate. I’d always been... hyperactive, I suppose you could say. Jumping from one project to another and never really seeing them through. Matt was the answer to that. He taught me to see things through. To mean something.”

Jensen nods, though it isn’t his experience at all. He’s gone through life hell-bent on finding meaning and working hard to get to it. Still, doesn’t mean he can’t understand the principle.

“We hung out, I learned the lay of the land. How to tree-sit, how to mark trees so they didn’t get cut, how to spike them so they couldn’t be used for lumber but the tree wouldn’t get hurt.” Misha places a peeled potato into the bowl on the table. Picks up one of the unpeeled ones and begins the process again.

“Why’d it turn bad?” Jensen asks.

“We went and did some tree-sitting in Australia,” Misha continues. “Awesome site, we had a huge tree village set up, tree houses, rallies. We even had a fucking trampoline up there at one stage.” Jensen raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment. “But then Matt started getting...too intense. Said we weren’t doing enough. I laughed it off as another of his periods of misunderstood genius. And then I found out he had snuck out one night to the nearby logging site and burned down their buildings.”

“Shit.” Jensen whistles lowly.

“Yeah. No one got hurt, but  _Jesus_. That wasn’t what we were about. It never was. It was so fucking stupid. He could have gone to jail, we  _all_  could have. And all we did was give the logging company power to have us forcibly evicted. We lost. The trees came down.”

Jensen wants to reach out, to say something to quell the look of utter sadness in Misha’s expression, but he doesn’t know if it would be welcome, so he concentrates on not cutting his thumb open instead.

“After that, well, Matt still wanted to do more. It was like he couldn’t see what he’d done, how much he’d hurt our cause. I called him on it and he called me a coward. We were deported, pretty much. Last I saw of him was the back of his head walking towards a taxi stand at LAX.”

“So how’d you get up here?”

Misha shrugs, placing the last potato in the bowl and leaning back in his chair tiredly. “I wanted something that was my own. Not his. Something pure-won. I don’t know where Matt went after we got back. But I figured it wasn’t up here, you know? And every fight is just as worthy as the next.”

Jensen nods, thinks he gets it. In their way, they’ve both run away from their past, seeking redemption in solitude. The ability to make their own mark, albeit by entirely different means.

“It’s why you have to know I didn’t plant that caltrop, Jensen,” Misha says quietly, and the intensity prickles the hairs on the back of Jensen’s neck. “I didn’t touch that logging equipment.”

Jensen thinks. “Fuller probably made it up,” he ventures, but Misha is shaking his head.

“No, I saw the damage. Someone fucked up that machinery. I mean, yes, I’m responsible for the one tire. I admit it, and I was maybe going to spike some trees. But the bulldozers? The burying of the caltrop? You have to believe me, it was not my doing.”

And Jensen does. Which puts him in a really fucking awkward position. He can’t turn Misha in, but at the same time, he can’t  _not_. He does reach out this time, resting his hand over Misha’s wrist where he plays nervously with the potato-peeler. “I believe you. I just don’t know what to do about it yet.”

Misha smiles, and it’s soft and sweet. His hand fidgets as if he wants to turn it over, to be palm to palm with Jensen. “It’s okay, man. I know. If you have to turn me over, you have to. I knew the risks coming into this thing. You saved my life, I don’t think we’ll even be halfway even if I save your job.”

Jensen nods absently, letting his fingers slide across the warm silk of Misha’s wrist a touch too slowly as he lets go. He collects the finished bowl of potatoes and gets up with a scrape of his chair on the wood floor. The problem is, he doesn’t really agree it’s a fair trade.

* * *

After dinner, Jensen sits finishing up some reading at the computer while Misha stretches out on the couch, leg straight and carefully placed so as not to jar it. He clears his throat and it’s forced enough that Jensen immediately looks up. Misha is staring at Jensen, a strange, curious look on his face.

“What?”

“I can’t figure out why your ex would think there was something better out there.”

Jensen deflects. “Maybe I'm just really bad in bed?”

“Oh, I doubt that.” Misha smirks and the lascivious quirk of his eyebrow goes straight down into Jensen’s abdomen like a red hot poker.

“Are you always this obvious when you flirt?” Jensen asks, amused.

“I have a pretty good success rate,” Misha parries back, all teeth and dimples.

“I’ll bet.”

They’re left in that weird world of smiling at each other, borderline creepily and for a moment Jensen wonders what on earth they’re doing. What  _he’s_  doing. He has to turn Misha in as soon as the damn radio works and he can call someone who cares. He can’t get emotionally attached to the guy. He can’t afford to.

Misha drops the stare first, turning back to his book with a curl of a smile playing at the corner of his lips. Jensen shakes his head, at Misha, himself, the world...whatever needs admonishment most, really.

An hour later, he helps Misha off the couch, an arm hooked around him to take his weight whenever he falters, which is less. But he still seems grateful of the support, and Jensen doesn’t ask if he wants to get there on his own.

Misha hisses slightly as Jensen helps him lift the injured leg onto the mattress without too much jostling. “Sorry, man,” he breathes, wincing in sympathy at the pinched look that flickers across Misha’s features.

“S’okay,” Misha breathes. “S’better than no leg, right?”

“I dunno,” Jensen jokes, aiming for humour to distract Misha’s worry, “peg legs can be pretty cool.”

“Can Bob be my parrot?” Misha asks, pulling the blankets up to his waist and leaning back against the headboard.

“You’d have to ask him.” Jensen grins as he sits down on the side of the bed, level with Misha’s hips. “He can be pretty stubborn.”

“And yet you look after him. Seriously, were you a boyscout in a previous life? Buddha? It’s freaky how much you care.”

“Says the man risking life and limb to save trees no one is ever going to know were saved,” Jensen retorts.

“S’different,” Misha says stubbornly.

“You and Bob will fly away, broken wings mended. I have no doubt about that. Well, you will if you stop letting me distract you from slumber,” Jensen says with a small laugh.

He makes to rise and leave Misha to his sleep, when Misha’s hand darts out and his fingers curl around Jensen’s wrist. Jensen raises an eyebrow at the tethering, the suddenly serious look on Misha’s face.

“Just. Thank you,” Misha says softly, and before Jensen understands what’s happening, Misha is leaning into his space, pressing soft, dry lips against his own. It’s chaste and quick, nothing more than a press of flesh and emotion, but Jensen must look a bit stunned because Misha laughs softly and lets go of his wrist. “I’d show you just how thankful I am if I weren’t afraid of ripping a leg open,” he says, fingers playing with the edge of the blanket at his waist.

“I...it’s my pleasure?” Jensen manages, taken off-guard by the feelings that ripple through him, the _want_  he feels in his bones.

“Oh, It might be,” Misha smiles. It’s dirty and full of sex, yet softer than the earlier bravado. 

Jensen grins and pats Misha’s thigh through the blanket. “Well, you better rest up then.”

He leaves Misha to do just that, smiling to himself as he heads back into the living room.

* * *

“I smell like ass,” Misha says the next morning, apropos of nothing as he sits at the table eating cereal.

“Um, okay?” Jensen laughs, watching the kettle and willing it to boil, wishing once again for real coffee. “And what would you like me to do about it?”

“Well, I can’t very well clean myself on my own,” Misha says with a wave of his spoon, states it like it’s a god-given fact.

On reflection, Jensen supposes it probably is. “Good point. Okay, well. We can do that.”

“How?” Misha asks.

“Um… well, I guess a shower is out of the question,” Jensen muses, pouring hot water into the coffee press and turning to evaluate Misha. “There’s not enough hot water for a bath though...”

“Are you going to suggest a sponge bath?” Misha grins, sounding entirely too enthusiastic about the prospect.

“I think not,” Jensen snorts. “I guess we could use up the hot water filling the bath, and then boil more on the stove...”

“You’ve never had a bath here?” Misha asks incredulously.

“I’ve never had the patience.”

“Huh. Well, that sucks. Baths are fun.”

“I’m sure they are,” Jensen allows. “I bet they’re even better with less effort involved.”

Misha just huffs a scoffing breath and focuses back on his cereal. “More effort, more payoff. That’s my motto.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Jensen notes before turning to press the plunger down into the murky black liquid.

Nothing has happened since the hardly-even-a-kiss from the night before. But Jensen can feel it, the tension suffusing the air around them. Fizzing and bubbling and  _waiting_.

He isn’t entirely sure getting wet and naked is going to help that, has to make sure it doesn’t. He knew it last night and he knows it now: it’s a bad idea. Moreover, it’s an unethical one. Misha is not only hurt but, technically, he’s Jensen’s responsibility. Jensen is his jailer. To fuck with that, given the potential ramifications - law cases from Abraxas, whatever - is not worth the risk. He’s already run from one life; he isn’t ready to fail at another.

However, Misha is right about one thing: he is starting to smell. Not bad, not sweaty gym socks or, as he so eloquently put it,  _ass_ , but yes, musky and earthy and like a bath wouldn’t be a bad thing in the near future.

Jensen wasn’t lying when he said he’d never had a bath in the cabin. He hasn’t. It’s one of those shower-over-bath deals, and given that he only usually has five minutes worth of hot water, he figured there wasn’t much point trying. But for Misha, he’ll try. Even if he won’t think about what exactly that means, why exactly that is. 

Half an hour later, water splashed down the front of his shirt and Misha smirking at him from the couch, and Jensen is rethinking the plan.

“You could help, you know,” Jensen grumbles, plonking an emptied pot back on the stove and filling it again with the ice-cold water from the tap.

“I can’t even walk,” Misha points out, and Jensen can hear loud and clear the amusement lacing the words.

Jensen doesn’t bother answering, just turns the gas on high and grabs the pot that’s just started bubbling. Misha’s soft laughter follows him to the bathroom.

When he decides there’s enough water for Misha to be comfortable, and that, although it isn’t hot, it isn’t cold, either, he heads back to help him off the couch. Misha’s eyes sparkle with laughter but wisely he says nothing, letting Jensen lever him up and support him as they stumble to the bathroom.

Inside there’s enough steam to give the impression water more luxuriously warm than it really is, and Jensen doesn’t feel like a terrible host for subjecting Misha to an almost-lukewarm bath. Once Misha makes it inside the room, props himself against the sink, Jensen makes to leave, hand curling on the doorknob before Misha’s voice stops him.

“Where are you going?”

“Uh, back out?” Jensen replies stupidly, turning back to Misha.

“I know you aren’t going to give me a sponge bath,” Misha says, smirking, “but I’m never going to be able to get into the bath on my own, man.”

“Oh,” Jensen replies helpfully, his brain whizzing in a hundred different, really unhelpful directions, half of them involving the pale expanse of skin he’d seen the other night, the lean flat of Misha’s stomach, the definition in his arms and legs. “No, I guess not.”

Misha lifts the hem of his T-shirt - one of Jensen’s - and windbreaker - also Jensen’s - pulling them up and over his head in one fell swoop. Jensen tries to remember to breathe over the sudden thud of his heart in his throat. It was one thing to see Misha cold and clammy and flirting with death; it’s totally another to see him warm and alive and flirting with  _him_.

Shit. 

“Uh,” Jensen swallows, and if anything, Misha just grins wider, nose crinkling. There’s no doubt he knows  _exactly_  what effect he’s having on Jensen. Because he’s a bastard.

“What?” Misha asks, serenely innocent as he slides the pair of Jensen’s sweats down over his hips, letting them drop to the floor and revealing absolutely nothing underneath.

“Fuck,” Jensen hisses out under his breath. “Misha...” he trails off.

“Can you get my socks?” Misha asks, blithely ignoring the wrecked desire Jensen knows he can hear in his voice.

“Can I what?” Jensen blinks.

“My socks,” Misha says, stepping out of the puddle of sweats, completely naked but for the navy woollen socks on his feet. Misha’s cock is interested, beginning to fill and hanging heavy, not erect but not flaccid either.

Jensen has no idea what he’s doing, knows only he should be anywhere else but here. And yet in a step and a half he finds himself crouching at Misha’s feet, sliding his fingers into the warm fuzziness of Misha’s left sock, rolling carefully down so as not to pull him off balance or brush against the injured leg. He slides it off Misha’s foot, lets him re-balance on the other and does the same with the right one, studiously, desperately keeping his eyes down, not looking, not raising his face to the warmth he can feel against his cheeks.

“Jensen,” Misha says softly, and without thinking he looks up. Finds himself face to face with Misha’s cock. Pink and plump, lifting as it fills and stiffens. It’s too much, it’s been too long and Jensen  _wants_. The odour is heavy and dark, and Jensen has no idea how it isn’t overpowering, given Misha’s lack of recent bathing, but it isn’t. It’s intoxicating and dangerous. 

He hears the sharp intake of breath that Misha gasps, and it goes to his head, making him dizzy with the knowledge it isn’t just him who finds this overwhelming.

He knows he can’t, he can’t, hecan’t,  _hecan’t._

But he has to. 

Because he’s only human and it’s been so damn long and he has a fucking cock in his face, pre-come pearling at the head, muscles jerking as it lifts. He leans in on autopilot, possessed, stupid...takes the hot heat of the head into his mouth, lips wrapping around the ridge of it and tongue sliding across the velvet-smooth skin, laving salt and liquid onto his palette. Jensen’s eyes slam shut as Misha’s hips buck forward and he moans, loud and erotically-charged in the quiet, cramped space of the bathroom. 

It’s so wrong, so fucking wrong and Jensen sucks only quickly, only enough to pull sense into his head and pre-come onto his tongue before he jerks back, lets Misha’s cock fall from his mouth. He’s on his feet a second later and Misha’s eyes are inches from his, blown so wide and dark that he seems possessed. 

“Jensen,” Misha stutters and though it’s just as wrong, just as terrible, Jensen falls once more. This time with his lips on Misha’s, their mouths opening in a hot tangle and mess of wet and want. Misha tastes like cereal and coffee and Jensen can’t get enough, sucking on his tongue, sliding lips against lips and tongues over teeth. They devour each other in silence, the only sound the drip of the tap into the bath and the heaving of lungs as they battle for breath and dominance.

Ironically, it’s Misha’s groan reverberating up through his tongue that stops Jensen, has him pulling back with mouth and body, a cold draft of air filling the space between where they’d melded together.

“Fuck,” Jensen swears, angry and turned-on. “Misha, we can’t do this.”

“Huh?” Misha asks, and his eyes are half-lidded with lust and confusion.

“I can’t,” Jensen pleads, taking another step back for good measure as his hands threaten to reach and grab, his fingers wanting to dent into the skin of Misha’s hips. “This isn’t... you’re hurt, and I can’t... and my job,” he babbles.

Misha seems to understand some of it, though, because his eyes lose their confusion, opening fully and knowingly. “I’m not an invalid, Jensen,” Misha says, and Jensen notes with relief that he isn’t angry. “Do I look like an invalid?”

Jensen shakes his head. “No, but you are. And anyway, we can’t, man. Please.”

“I know you want this as much as I do,” Misha says, pointedly looking down at Jensen’s crotch where his cock is tenting his cargo pants. 

Jensen smiles ruefully, takes a shuddering breath to calm himself. “I want it,” he admits, knowing Misha won’t stop for anything less than the truth. “You have no idea how much, but no.”

Misha seems to hear the finality in Jensen’s tone, and it’s with a huge rush of relief that Jensen realises he’s going to do what he says. That he won’t push it. He’s relieved because he knows that he’s hanging on by a thread, that if Misha wanted, if Misha tried, he’d fold like a house of cards.

But he doesn’t, and Jensen is safe.

“Let me help you into the bath, okay?” Jensen says, turning, although falsely, to calm professionalism. 

“Okay,” Misha says, as if his erection isn’t curving towards his stomach, his chest not flushed red where they pressed so close, lips swollen and wet with Jensen’s saliva.

An arm at his elbow, Jensen helps Misha into the bath, one foot in and awkwardly sitting down, resting the ankle of the red, cut leg on the cold tap to keep it out of the water.

Jensen wants to run, to get out as quickly as he can, but once again, Misha stops him. “Seriously, Jensen, do I really look like an invalid?” Misha asks, and Jensen is about to tell him to knock it off, that he’s already answered, but Misha stares at him and lifts his hand out of the water, curling it around the jut of his cock and stroking upwards with a breathy moan.

“Misha,” Jensen whimpers, frozen to the spot as his gaze flits between the hand on Misha's cock and the bright blue of Misha’s eyes on him.

“Unngh,” Misha groans, stroking down and back up again, closing his eyes in pleasure. “Jesus, Jensen... you have no idea what I want to do to you, do you?”

Jensen doesn’t answer, can’t answer, transfixed to Misha’s wet hand, the hard line of his cock disappearing and reappearing between Misha’s fingers. The tip is purple-red and fat, and Jensen wants nothing more to clamp his lips over it, to suck and suck and suck.

Misha moans obscenely, and sure, it’s a bit of a show, but more than a lot real, and Jensen swallows thickly and closes his eyes tight, hanging on to the side of the bathtub for dear life. 

“Oh, god, Jensen,” Misha moans and it’s way too much. 

He can’t take it and with restraint he had no idea he possessed rises to his feet, makes the steps to the door in a daze and finds himself on the other side of it, the cold of the cabin outside the bathroom like a slap to the face. But he can’t do more than that, sliding down the door to his ass, head tipped back against the solid wood as if his strings have been cut and he has no more willpower to live, let alone move further away.

And he can still hear him. Hear Misha. The soft splashes of water and shifts of skin against the fibreglass of the tub. The gasping of breaths, the moans and guttural groans Misha _must_  know he can hear. 

Jensen’s hand flies to his cock, pressing hard through the cotton of his pants and briefs, and he groans at the pressure, the pleasure, rubbing down hard and fast.

Through the door, Misha’s breaths are hitching, groans cutting off mid-throat and the slap of a wrist against water getting faster. Faster,  _faster_. And then an unnatural stillness, quiet followed by what Jensen  _knows_  is the sound of Misha coming, the strangled cry and jerk of release, the sound of come hitting water.

And Jensen can’t hold on. He pushes furiously at the material of his pants, grabs his cock through it awkwardly and jerks hard and fast, pulls and pushes until he’s pulsing and jerking, spilling his semen into his underwear, coating himself and his clothes in the sticky cool of his own come.

Silence on both sides of the door.

When feeling comes back to Jensen’s legs and the sheer wrongness of what he’s just done slides shamefully into his mind, he shuts himself in his bedroom; cleans himself off with tissues and water from the glass on the nightstand and changes into new clothes.

Unable to bear going back out, he flops down onto his back and wills himself to fall asleep, to grant himself a reprieve from the thoughts clouding his head. 

He doesn’t know how Misha manages to get out of the bath, but when he ventures out of the bedroom a few too many hours later, Misha is propped up on the couch and reading another pulp novel. For the rest of the day, neither of them says a word.

* * *

By unspoken agreement, neither of them talks about the bathroom incident  _at all_ ; it’s surprising. But then, Misha surprises him all ‘round, really. He was sure Misha would bring it up, this thing between them. Push at it like a tongue to a loose tooth, the sweet ache too much to resist. His flirting and utter disinclination to stop when Jensen pleaded with him seem to fade away. As if he knows Jensen needs it that way.

Jensen goes back to helping Misha and Misha lets him, but there’s nothing charged to it, just reassurance and comfort. Misha is able to move around more anyway, not healed, but getting there. And so they spend a day bumping around in the cramped interior of the cabin. Jensen’s surprised how easily Misha fits in the space. Jared would be knocking things off counters, banging his head on the low eaves. Misha is tall, roughly the same height as Jensen, and yet he moves with a grace that belies the ranginess of his limbs. All those years in trees, dodging and weaving, knowing where to put one’s feet and hands seem to have paid off.

Jensen puts off going outside to do the chores he needs to do if he wants to keep his job until the last minute. He doesn’t want to leave Misha on his own if he’s unable to move. Not that there’s much danger he can get into in the cabin, but Jensen still doesn’t trust that Fuller won’t come calling with murderous intent. And okay, if he’s honest with himself, some of it is just that he doesn’t want to leave Misha, period.

But Misha is still not ready to walk far. His wound is starting to scab a little at the ends and he doesn’t grimace in pain each time his foot hits the floor, but it’s not like he’ll be fleeing bears or running marathons any time soon. However, when it becomes clear that Misha can get around the cabin just fine, if not particularly fast, Jensen decides he can’t ignore his actual job any longer.

“I’m only going to be a couple of hours, three at the most,” he says again, wanting to reassure, confirm that he isn’t going off to abandon his invalid charge, or worse, bring the cops back.

“Jensen, seriously,” Misha laughs. “I’m fine. Go do your Smokey Bear stuff. I’ll keep the home fires burnin’.”

“I thought wood burning would be a no-no, ecologically speaking,” Jensen retorts, grabbing a water bottle and his notebook for recording observations and stuffing them into his backpack.

“Funny. And no, but neither is the way they extract propane gas, so...”

Snorting, Jensen slips on his jacket. “That being the case or not, keep out of trouble and off that leg. I expect you to be in one piece when I get back. And look after Bob.”

“Yes, Mom,” Misha grins and Jensen swats at his shoulder in retaliation before heading to the door. Before he can head out, however, Misha calls him back. “Hey, Jen?”

It’s the first time he’s called Jensen anything other than his full name, and Jensen feels a little thrill at the familiarity of it, the idea Misha feels comfortable enough to do it - that they haven’t fucked things up by their little mutual appreciation, even though there shouldn’t be anything  _to_  fuck up, nor should he care. 

“Yeah?” he asks, turning to him.

“Be careful?”

Jensen nods and mock-salutes before closing the door behind him. The grin on his face doesn’t wear off for at least a quarter mile.

* * *

There are quite a few rain gauges and catchments sprinkled around different parts of the woods, and Jensen uses them for different things: acidity, infestation testing, simple measurement of precipitation. It’s a pain to have to collect from all of them, but Jensen knows being thorough is important if they’re to use any of the data later.

He hikes out and hits the gauges along the East Ridge, collecting water samples in test-tubes and earth samples in bags. Later he’ll study them, count bugs and inclusions, study the pH and soil density. It’s repetitive work, and often with little material gratification, but he doesn’t mind. Jensen finds peace in the knowledge that every tiny increment or information is building up to a bigger picture, perhaps bigger than even he will ever know.

He’s half done, a scrape along his arm where he misjudged a rock formation and skidded down a small incline, raking his forearm along the branch of a nearby spruce, when he first sees it.

At first he thinks it’s just a branch, jutting out across the deer trail he’s travelling. So much so, he almost goes to kick it into the underbrush, but something stops him before the tip of his boot connects. Crouching down with a bad feeling in his stomach, he pushes some of the leaf matter aside.

It’s not a branch; it’s a leg. 

A deer’s leg. 

He quickly pushes aside the grass and brush. The deer is dead, its eyes already glassy. It’s also really young, much too young to be lying dead in the middle of the forest. It isn’t immediately apparent why the deer is dead, but as Jensen leans over it he spots the trouble, a dark maroon streak of blood coagulating from one point on the neck. A gunshot wound.

Hunting is illegal this far north. It’s illegal throughout the whole area and has been for at least five years. Despite that, every so often Jensen is called to flush out an errant hunter, normally those who claim not to know about the ban. It’s unlikely, given that they aren’t able to get permits for the area, and have to admit they are hunting illegally anyway. Very rarely, actual wildlife is injured. And quite probably if it is, Jensen never knows about it, most hunters in these parts taking their kill with them and leaving no one the wiser.

A shot fawn? That speaks to something else. That speaks to  _sport_. Jensen might not be a vegetarian, fruitarian, vegan,  _whatever_ , he eats meat and relishes it, but that doesn’t mean he abides the killing of animals for fun.

Angrily, Jensen pulls the little guy back into the bushes. A coyote will most likely take him before nightfall. At least the food chain will persevere, even if it gets there unnaturally. The deer is starting to stiffen, the cold creep of death invading its muscles, but it hasn’t been here long. Whoever and wherever the hunters are, Jensen will be able to track and find them without too much trouble. As long as they haven’t gone too far away, and he doubts they have, he should be able to get back only an hour or two later than what he told Misha. It bothers him, having been so insistent about being back in a few hours, but it can’t be helped. He has a duty to uphold.

Casting his eyes about for evidence of disturbance, he spots some broken fern fronds, trodden into the dirt. Shouldering his pack a little more comfortably, he follows the breadcrumbs into the woods.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, Jensen starts to slow, sensing that the hunters are close. The tracks are heavier here, grass and fern not having had much time to bounce back from being squashed into the mud. Silently, Jensen makes his way through the ferns, keeping close to the relative safety of towering tree trunks. He pauses, thinks he hears voices carrying on the wind, but minutes pass without a repeat.

Edging onwards, he comes to the lip of a ravine, trees clinging to its sides and giant roots exposed where they clutch at survival. Jensen spots a tent that has been erected down in the flat. It’s green, but too bright to be naturally occurring. He drops to the ground behind the closest tree trunk, setting his pack to the side and disentangling his lightweight binoculars from one of the side-straps. 

The image is blurry and he twists at the lenses until the pictures dips in, out and back into focus again. There’s one guy down there, though Jensen can only see his back as he fiddles with something hanging on one of the nearby trees. He’s wearing one of those ridiculous ear-flap hats Jensen despises. No grown man in his right mind should ever wear one of them, Canada or no. There are a couple of shotguns propped against a tree, and further on, the carcass of another deer. Jensen wonders, with a hot spear of fury, if it’s the mother of the deer left back on the path.

There’s something familiar about the way the guy starts to pull at the ropes he’s tying. Jensen can’t quite put his finger on it, but he wonders if maybe it’s a repeat offender, someone he’s had to deal with for illegal hunting before. The guy turns and the facial recognition in Jensen’s brain ratchets to even higher familiarity. He just can’t work it...

In a split-second, Jensen recognises the man as one of the boomers from the Abraxas site. One of the guys Fuller said skipped out on him. Just as Jensen realises, with a weird flutter in his gut, that there ought to be  _two_  men, not one, someone says from beside him, “Hey, Fred.”

No sooner does he turn to the sound than the butt of a shotgun slams into his temple with a sickening _crack_ , and everything slides away.

* * *

Jensen isn’t sure if he’s alive or dead. All that fills his head is a loud banging, shuddering over and over through his skull. It isn’t pain, it isn’t  _anything_  except consciousness and noise. For awhile he drifts on it, existing in the moment before waking, or not waking, just  _there_.

Minutes or hours later, the banging solidifies into intense pain and Jensen groans, retches into the dirt in which his face apparently rests. It’s not drumming, or shooting or music, it’s blood. His own blood rushing past his eardrums in a steady, thumping bass.

He guesses that means he isn’t dead. The sheer torture is unbearable and Jensen fights the ease of unconsciousness that prickles and soothes at the corners of his mind. His mouth tastes gritty and he thinks maybe the dirt he’s been lying in is also in his mouth.

At some point it occurs to him he needs to get more input. His eyes, he thinks, should be open. At first all he sees is more blackness, no change to when they were closed. If, that is, he actually opened them. But the stinging cold against his naked corneas makes them water, reassures him that yes, they’re open. His second thought, a split second of fear that makes his head pound even harder, is that he’s blind.

The thought leaves almost as soon as it comes, however, images resolving themselves in the darkness, great hulks of tree trunks surrounding him. He’s outside, and it’s night. A step up from being blind, then. Maybe.

Belatedly, it floods back to him, the memory of the deer and the loggers, or hunters, whatever they are. The butt of the rifle.  _Fuck_.

He tries to move, to flee and run and get to safety, to Misha. But his hands are fastened tight behind him, his legs bound at the ankle. He’s caught.

The struggle takes it out of him and he slips woozily, sliding and riding the waves back into unconsciousness.

* * *

Judging by the darkness when Jensen next opens his eyes, it’s only a short while later. Or a whole night later, but he’s going to hope for the former. Certainly the pain seems intense enough that his body can’t have been given time to recover.

This time there are voices, floating over to him with the smell of smoke and charred meat:  
“Well, it’s not like we can kill him,” says a deep voice.

“Hunting accidents happen all the time,” comes a second voice, higher and more nasal.

“Think, dickhead. You want to add murder to the counts of destruction of property and illegal poaching?”

“No,” says the second voice, sullen. “But what the fuck are we going to do?”

“Coulda thought about that before you bashed his fucking skull in,” the first growls.

There’s sound of something large, perhaps a beer bottle, being thrown into the underbrush. “Fuck, we’re going to go to jail aren’t we?”

“Don’t be so melodramatic. We can just leave him here, for fuck’s sake. No one is going to come looking for him until we’re long gone.”

“What if he gets away?”

“You’re the head-kicker. Do it again, dumbnuts.”

“Yeah, but what if he saw us, man? If he puts it together...from the yard.”

“He saw us from across a lot. He won’t know. Besides, Fuller The Fucktard doesn’t have our real names anyway.”

“Do you think it worked?”

“The tampering?”

“Yeah.”

“‘Course. They’ll have blamed the fruit-loop in the tree. No question. They stopped early, didn’t they? Fuller won’t be able to finish the job. No way we coulda bagged that Bambi if the saws were going.”

“We gotta get the loggers out of the woods forever, or it’ll be fucking ruined for hunting.”

“Next year, we think of something else. They’ll give up eventually. It’s our forest, man. It ain’tgettin’ chopped down so some assholes in America make money. We been here way too long for that.”

“I hope you’re right, man.”

“Shut up and drink your beer.”

After that, silence falls, punctuated by random belching and the thump of more bottles being thrown. Jensen fights to stay awake, especially with the prospect of another head wound in the near future. But in the end, the darkness wins out and he lets his eyes slide closed. His last thought is that he hopes a bear doesn’t eat him while he’s passed out; if that happens, Misha will never know where he went to. And he’ll never know if Misha maybe thinks of him the way Jensen kinda thinks about him. If maybe the electricity sparking between them could be more.

That would really suck.

* * *

White light is shining through Jensen’s eyelids and he’s freezing. These are the only two things that filter into his consciousness when he next has the ability to think. The pounding in his head remains, though it’s lessened somewhat. Either that, or he’s too cold to feel anything anymore.

Knowing it’s going to hurt, he pries open his eyes.

The light turns out to be morning sunlight. Well, without the ‘sun’ part, he amends. The freezing part is simply that he’s lying on the ground, tied to a tree with nothing to keep him warm but the jacket with which he left the house. Truthfully, he’s a little surprised he woke at all. Freezing temperatures and a head injury? Yeah. It’s a bit of a miracle. It has to be around nine, if not a little later; he’s already been gone a good seventeen hours longer than he told Misha he’d be gone. 

He can’t see his captors, but they can’t be far - their shotguns are still resting against the tree. Jensen wonders just how stupid they are; if the damp gets into them it won’t do ‘em good. Then again, the two of them didn’t strike him as intellectual types. Probably, they’re passed out drunk in the tent.

Jensen pulls at the ropes again. They don’t budge and, what’s more, a night on the ground with his arms tied behind his back has left his arms agonizingly sore. He tries to flex and almost bites through his lip keeping in the yelp of pain.

He wonders if Misha has called for help yet, but then remembers the fucked-up phone. The chances of it working are next to zero. As soon as he thinks it, despair floods his stomach like a coating of sour mud.

A branch snaps somewhere behind him.

Panicking, he thinks it’s the hunters, not sleeping it off like he thought, but out early for prey, coming back to deliver that last, potentially fatal hit. The thought randomly blips through his head that forest rangers have the most fatal job there is in law-enforcement, just like he told Misha. It’s not comforting.

He struggles against the ropes, yanking at his wrists and sending slices of pain down his arms and chest. Another snap, the crash of something heavy in the undergrowth and Jensen’s about to shout, for no damn reason except he’s trapped and it’s the only thing left he can do.

He pulls a breath into his aching lungs, hopes he has a voice left with which to yell when suddenly, quick as lightning, fingers wrap across his mouth, holding in any potential exhale of sound. The loss of air supply threatens to send Jensen into apoplexy. Trained as he is for dealing with stressful situations, he isn’t trained for  _this_.

The urge to shout is even stronger, and he tries to kick out, uselessly, at whoever is behind him. And then the person is in front of him and staring at him with wide, scared eyes. Blue eyes. Misha.

As the scream dies in Jensen’s throat, Misha judges the shift, pulls his fingers from Jensen’s face. He steps over him, nearly trips as he does it but then he’s there, kneeling in the dirt in front of Jensen.

“Fuck,  _fuck_ , Jen, are you okay?” Misha whispers, his voice a low, frightened rumble.

Jensen nods, winces at the pain that jolts down his neck and spine. “I’m okay,” he whispers, voice rough and hoarse from the cold and dirt. “Misha, what the fuck, get out of here. What are you doing?”

“Rescuing you, apparently,” Misha hisses back, draws a knife from his pocket and starts hacking at the ropes at Jensen’s hands. 

“How did you even get here?” Jensen says lowly, resisting the urge to yell, to make Misha leave and get to safety.

“I told you I'm not an invalid,” Misha says grimly, sawing at the ropes but not making much of a dent.

They don’t have time. “Mish, the guns,” Jensen stutters, the nickname from the long night of Misha’s fever slipping back into his vocabulary as if it never left. “You have to get their guns. By the tree.”

Misha nods, eyes wide. “I can do that,” he says, pressing the blade into Jensen’s hand and angling it so maybe Jensen can keep cutting. Just maybe.

“Be careful,” Jensen orders as Misha stands from his crouch and slides nearer the closest tree. He makes his way to the next trunk, using them as cover. Jensen can see the way he’s favouring his good leg, far more than in the previous days. The idiot has probably pulled it open, ruined the healing scab. 

Jensen listens as hard as he can, waiting for the zip of a tent or the crash of someone waking and blundering outside. The clap of a gunshot. But it doesn’t come. He keeps cutting at the rope, finally feeling it begin to give, eyes glued to the figure of Misha making his way to the guns.

And then Misha is there, grabbing the guns at the same time as the ropes binding Jensen’s wrists give with a final creak and pull free. Blood flows into his hands again, painfully hot and prickling. He pushes himself up on shaking limbs.

Misha creeps back, stumbling a little and wincing as his foot hits the ground with each step. Finally he’s there, in front of Jensen and falling gracelessly to his knees, his face a mask of barely concealed fright and plain anguish. Misha pushes the guns aside and reaches for his knife again, hacking and sawing at the ropes on Jensen’s ankles without a word. They break far quicker than the ones on Jensen’s wrists, and Jensen finds himself free from his shackles, if not out of danger.

“What do we do?” Misha whispers, fingers wrapping tightly around Jensen’s wrist as if to reassure himself he’s there and okay.

Jensen glances around the area. The hunters are still in their tent, but if and when they wake up and find Jensen gone, they aren’t going to stick around and wait to be captured. No, if they’re to catch these guys, to stop them and lock ‘em up and clear Misha’s name? They have to do it now.

Apologetically, Jensen turns back to Misha. “I have to get the assholes out of the tent.”

“What,  _why?_ Misha demands in a panicked whisper.

Jensen reaches out, cups Misha’s jaw in a ridiculously intimate way. “‘Cause it’s my job.”

Misha looks like he’s going to protest, to tell him to go fuck his job and get the hell out of Dodge. But he doesn’t. Instead he pauses, considers Jensen seriously before looking away with a sigh. “Fine. But I’m not leaving you to do it alone.”

Jensen nods, because it’s not an argument he’s going to win. “Okay, but you have to do exactly what I say, okay?” Misha nods and stays silent.“ Right,” Jensen says, thinking furiously. He reaches for the guns between them, the wood and metal cold and damp to his touch. Checking the chamber, his heart sinks. They aren’t loaded. “Shit.”

“What?” Misha asks, looking down at the gun in Jensen’s hands.

“Not loaded, and they know it. So we won’t be able to bluff.”

“Wait,” Misha says suddenly and pulls something from the back of his pants. The black metallic shape solidifies into recognition in Jensen’s mind. It’s the Glock from the cabin.

“Don’t suppose you brought the bullets for that?” Jensen questions and Misha’s face falls. “Don’t worry. We can still bluff with it. They sure as hell won’t expect it not to be loaded.”

Misha nods. “So what do we do?”

Jensen studies Misha a moment, contemplating the insanity of the plan. If it goes well, they’ll be golden. If it doesn’t, he’ll be the one who put a civilian in danger or, worse, got one killed. “How’s your right hook?” he asks. 

Misha grins, and it bolsters Jensen’s faith, even if it’s not quite full enough to be entirely genuine.

“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do...”

Jensen stays by his prison-tree while Misha sneaks back over to the tent, this time from behind. At his nod at being in position, Jensen starts yelling.

“Hey, assholes. You better get out here!” he shouts, aware it’s ridiculous but that it’ll do.

And it does. There’s a rustling and shuffling in the tent and Jensen moves the second he sees the bulging of the material as someone goes for the zip. The first hunter shows his face: it’s the taller, stocky one, now sporting a week-long beard and long-johns sticking out from under his flannels. 

“Told ya,” Jensen says, with way more bravado than he feels as the guy catches sight of him. 

The hunter gapes and makes to move - to go out or in, Jensen has no idea - but it doesn’t matter because with his attention focused on Jensen the guy doesn’t see Misha come from the other side, pull back and slam the butt of the unloaded gun into his skull with a dull, cracking thump. The guy slumps to the ground, half inside the tent, half out.

“What the fuck?!” comes the yell from inside the canvas, and then the other man is stepping over his friend, red in the face and angry as all hell. He lunges and narrowly misses Misha as he jumps back, startled, adrenaline taking him in the right direction and out of reach.

But Misha hits the ground hard, and Jensen knows with a sickening heaviness in his stomach that Misha’s leg is in trouble. The look of agony that flashes across his face is heartbreaking, and Misha crumples backwards, shotgun thrown aside and thudding to his ass in the pine-needle carpet. Jensen fights the instinct to run to him. The hunter, however, doesn’t have such qualms. He takes a step towards Misha, swooping and snatching the abandoned rifle in his meaty hands.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you,” Jensen growls, tone harsh and as unforgiving as he can make it. The guy whirls like a tank aiming its canons, gun up and pointed at him on instinct. 

“Now, now,” Jensen continues, trying with all his might not to step back. “I have one of those, too,” he says, bringing up the other shotgun. It isn’t loaded, but as long as the guy’s attention is on him and not Misha, Jensen doesn’t care.

“Nice try, asshole,” the hunter chuckles and advances another step. “We both know that isn’t loaded.”

Jensen drops the shotgun and grabs the Glock from where he’d stashed it in his waistband, just in case. “Maybe, man. But what about this one?” He gestures with the gun and the man’s gaze flicks to it immediately.

The hunter scoffs, steps over his friend and takes a menacing step towards Jensen. “You expect me to believe that’s loaded? If it was, you’d have used it first.”

“You want to take that chance?” Jensen bluffs. “You think my friend over there would have brought it if it wasn’t?” The hunter hesitates, just for a second, and Jensen goes for it. “How about you put that on the ground and sit the fuck down. Hands above your head.”

The seconds tick sluggishly by and Jensen can see the war waging itself in the man’s eyes as he weighs his options. Finally, he looks down at his co-conspirator, unconscious on the ground, and Jensen can see the moment he gives in, shoulders slumping and breath hissing out in resignation. He gets to his knees, drops the gun and raises his arms.

Jensen approaches warily, gun cocked and pointed. The hunter rolls his eyes but doesn’t move, and Jensen kicks the other shotgun away towards where Misha is still on the ground, watching the proceedings in silence.

Looking at him, his hair dishevelled, dirt smudged across one cheek and his injured leg held at an odd angle, Jensen feels a surge of anger flood through him, not for himself, but for the potential of the situation. Without thinking too hard about it, he pistol-whips the guy across the head. The hunter slumps with a groan, not going down completely but enough to render him useless. Misha just raises an eyebrow. Jensen shrugs, and Misha bites at his lip, holding back a smile.

When the hunters are secured to the same tree to which they tied Jensen, not going anywhere and not about to try with the gun trained on them, Jensen evaluates the situation. They have to go get help, there’s no way he and Misha can bring these guys in by themselves. And even if they did, he has no idea where they can keep them. He can’t very well lock them up in the bathroom until he can call someone to come get them.

No, the only option is to take them to the Abraxas site. They aren’t far away, by his reckoning, and they can lock the guys in one of the portables. Jensen bets Fuller’s satellite has a lot more money behind it and is more likely to work when they call the authorities.

But there’s no way he and Misha can get the hunters to the site. Not on their own. Not with one passed out and the other larger than he and Misha combined. Even with the Glock. If they figure out it’s not loaded, they’re shit out of luck, especially knowing Misha is injured.

One of them has to go fetch Fuller for help. It should be Jensen - he’s less damaged and more trained - but he can’t leave a civilian with two felons, especially unarmed. And so it has to be Misha, injured though he is.

Despite the monumental task Jensen asks of him, Misha simply nods and agrees. “I’ll see you in a bit,” he says, smiling slightly and with a quick squeeze to Jensen’s hand.

When he can no longer see Misha limping through the trees, and the guilt at letting him go threatens to send Jensen sprinting in after him, Jensen takes a couple deep breaths and sits down on a log. He stays close to the smouldering remains of the campfire, where he can watch over his prisoners. 

He spends a good deal of the next hour and a half imagining Misha cut and bleeding to death, tripped and fallen over a tree root or succumbing to the pain of his leg and slipping, hurtling to destruction down a ravine. It threatens to tip him into panic, heartbeat hastening and breaths shallow, and he has to physically force himself to think of something else.

That something else turns into what he wants to do to Misha if they both survive this. Misha, who came to Jensen’s rescue despite not knowing where he was, despite being hurt and in pain. To rescue someone who planned to turn him over to the authorities because he couldn’t afford to lose his job.

It’s ridiculous for two people to feel this way when they’ve only known each other a week, considering they spent a fair chunk of that time arguing opposing views they didn’t really have. Sure, Misha is hot - Jensen won’t to deny that, nor deny what he wants to do with Misha, what he wants to explore. But Jensen’s been with hot men before - hello,  _Jared_. This feels different. It feels electric and meaningful and somehow intimate. Somewhere between his unfair judgement of who he’d find up a tree and the careful tending to Misha’s leg, he feels like he’s found something else entirely.

And really, there’s nothing like being tied up and threatened with death to make you want to celebrate life. He thinks back to Misha in the bathroom. To the taste of Misha’s pre-come on his tongue. Misha’s cock hardening and begging to be sucked. 

Jensen shudders, quickly glances over to make sure the hunters are still down for the count.

He wants so much to be able to taste Misha. All of him, from his lips, to his throat, the soft skin of his inner arm. To drag his teeth over Misha’s delicate wrists. More than anything he wants to pin him down and prove to himself that he’s okay, he’s safe,  _they’re_  safe and can discover each other in their own time without the overlying wrongness of their prescribed roles. 

If Misha wants it, that is. And fuck, but Jensen hopes he does.

If he weren’t so cold and worried and, hell, still recovering from a night out with a head injury, he’d be getting inappropriately hard. But it beats freaking out that Misha isn’t okay, and so he lets his mind wander, imagines the cries Misha made as he jacked himself off because of Jensen. Wondering what other noises he can drag out of Misha’s throat and soft, plump lips. Whether he’ll be possessive and in control, or go still and supple and let Jensen take and take and take.

The noise of people approaching from the south alerts him that Misha has been successful, is clearly still alive and not lying mauled by a puma somewhere between here and the logging site. The wave of relief that washes over Jensen is palpable, and he fights the need to express it, to yell or laugh or cry; instead he digs his fingernails into the rotting wood and moss of the log on which he sits.

Fuller bursts into the clearing, followed by three burly lumberjacks and, for once, Jensen is actually glad to see him.

“Ranger Ackles,” Fuller says, turning his smarmy smile on his two ex-employees. “Seems you caught me some saboteurs.”

* * *

From there, things happen quickly. The five of them easily manage to get the two hunters up and moving, now with real loaded guns as back up. It’s only about a half-hour to the site, though clearly it took Misha a lot longer. On the way there, Fuller explains to Jensen that Misha’s fine, being looked after by the first-aid guy back at camp. Jensen tries to act nonchalant at the information as his heart stutters and rises in his chest.

At the site, Jensen leaves Fuller and his cronies to lock the guys into one of the trailers, and heads back to Fuller’s office to call the authorities. Misha is there, sitting quietly in Fuller’s desk chair, pale and drawn, but alive. 

“You made it,” Jensen says with a smile.

Misha looks up and his face splits into a grin. “Yup, told you I'm not an invalid. One of these days you may even believe it.”

“Sure,” Jensen grins. “One of these days.”

He wants nothing more than to check that Misha’s safe, make sure every inch of him is okay, but he knows if he starts he’ll never stop, and so he stays on the far side of the desk and picks up the phone. With a satellite that works, HQ picks up immediately and Jensen explains the situation, eyes trained on Misha as Misha watches back.

As Jensen is transferred through to the people to whom he needs to report the events of the past few days, recounting the story and explaining that the ‘hippie in the tree’ was not the one at fault as Fuller previously informed them. 

“We’ll send out a plane as soon as the weather clears,” says the officer on the other end of the line. “Will the American be coming back, too?”

Jensen tenses, not expecting the question, however reasonable. “Um, just one second,” he answers, cupping the receiver with his palm. “They want to know if you’ll be flying back,” he says neutrally to Misha, not allowing himself to feel anything about the outcome.

Misha’s pupils widen; apparently he hadn’t expected it, either. They stare at each other for a long, drawn-out moment before he corner of Misha’s mouth ticks upwards in a shy smile. “I think I’d rather stay and recuperate a little longer, actually. Get some fresh mountain air and all that.”

Jensen feels the grin that stretches across his face and he un-cups the phone. “No, not yet.”

“Okay, Warden,” comes the tinny voice down the line. “We’ll have your suspects picked up in the next day and will send up a new satellite with the fuel refill next week. Good work, I'm sure your Senator will be glad to hear it. He’s been,er… calling a bit.”

“Yeah, I'll bet he has. Thanks,” Jensen says absently and hangs up.

“So,” Misha says, smiling tiredly.

“So,” Jensen echoes, and with barely concealed joy makes his way around the desk.

Seconds later he’s kissing Misha, swallowing the gasp that comes from his lips, chair swivelled towards him and his hands on Misha’s forearms, anchoring him. It’s soft and careful and so full of the need for reassurance he thinks they both might drown. It’s all they manage before the sound of boots scuffing against dirt alerts them to Fuller making his way to them.

They don’t make it back to the cabin until late that night, hopped up on painkillers and patched up like broken dolls. They fall into Jensen’s bed by mutually unspoken agreement, clothes shucked without thought or comment, exhausted and asleep in minutes.

* * *

When Jensen wakes it’s to the experience of déjà vu. Once again, he’s being watched. This time, however, there is no respectable distance between him and Misha. This time, one of Misha’s legs is ensnared between Jensen’s calves and Misha’s fingers are gliding up and down the length of his side. Misha’s eyes crinkle in amusement as he watches Jensen’s brain kick into wakefulness.

“Hi,” Misha says softly, his voice a low burr of warmth.

“You’re watching me while I sleep again,” Jensen mutters, trying to sound grumpy when all he really feels is incredibly fucking happy to be where he is, with who he is. “It’s still not polite.”

Misha licks his lips, teeth flashing in a smile. “No, but then I’m not always well-mannered.”

Jensen ignores the obvious line, reaches his arm out to where Misha’s unoccupied hand is lying between them and thumbs at the soft skin of his wrist. “How are you feeling?”

The bed vibrates with Misha’s silent laughter. “That’s what you’re going to go with? How am I feeling?”

Jensen feels his mouth twist in unshed humour. “What? It’s a perfectly good question.”

Misha nods in mock seriousness. “It is, but I can think of a few other things that might take precedence. Don’t you?” he asks, sliding his calf sinfully slowly in between Jensen’s legs, hair prickling softly.

“Actually, I thought of a few things,” Jensen admits, smoothing his thumb up the soft expanse of Misha’s inner forearm. “Yesterday, when you were getting Fuller.”

“Oh?” Misha asks innocently. Only not.

“Yeah,” Jensen says, swallowing hard and inching imperceptibly closer across the mattress. 

“Like what?” Misha asks and it’s breathless, his leg pushes, slides further up between Jensen’s knees.

Jensen is done with holding back. The man in his bed is now no longer under his protection or supervision. He wants nothing more than to show Misha exactly what he’s been wanting. He reaches out and clamps a hand on Misha’s ass and pulls, hard. In a second, Misha is against him, soft naked skin and silk. His erection pushing into Jensen’s belly. Jensen’s doing likewise to Misha’s stomach. Misha groans and his eyes flicker shut for an instant, allowing Jensen to see the fan of eyelashes against his cheek.

“Was thinking about the noises you might make, if I did something like this,” Jensen says lowly, drags his fingertips up, slow and firm, from Misha’s ass to his nape.

The hitch in Misha’s breath and way he pushes forward with his hips, pressing sharp into Jensen’s abs is not a bad response, as responses go. “Mmmmm, is that all you thought about?” Misha asks on a shaky breath.

“No.” Jensen shakes his head slowly, eyes boring into Misha’s. “I also wanted to know what you’d do if I moved in here,” he says, angling and nuzzling under Misha’s chin to get at his throat, sucking at the salty, sleep-hot skin.

“Ungh,” Misha mutters indistinctly and bares his throat even more. “Jensen, please,” he whispers in a strangled voice.

“Or,” Jensen says, hitching himself up just a bit to bite at Misha’s jaw, firm enough to leave sharp indentations and pull a whine of need from Misha’s throat. “You know.  _That_.”

“Seriously, Jensen. I’ll make any noise you want if you just get with the program,” Misha growls and pushes his leg up between Jensen’s thighs, rocking them until Jensen leans back and Misha is pushing his way on top of him. The shift moves their positions and Misha’s cock is now leaking into the crevice of Jensen’s hipbone and groin, a trail of pre-come traced from his stomach.

“Is that a promise?” Jensen groans, rocking up against Misha’s weight.

“If you want,” Misha says and the words hit Jensen’s face as warm air when Misha leans in and their lips finally meet. 

Misha kisses him sweet, tongue teasing and flickering at Jensen’s lips, but not claiming. Jensen lets him, lets his own tongue dart out to meet Misha’s, a duelling touch between lips, neither his nor Misha’s. His eyes have shut, arms coming up around the warm, narrow waist of the body on top of him, and his hands slide over muscles, shoulder blades, the hard lines of Misha’s ribs, down to the perfect roundness of his ass. As Misha moans and finally deepens the kiss, Jensen kneads the muscles of his ass, pulls their hips together, sliding until their cocks align and alight, causing them both to shudder. The friction is amazing, hard and shivery and wet, pre-come cooling against overheated skin.

But Jensen doesn’t want Misha to have all the fun and he pushes gently, slides Misha’s body off him and rolls with it, stopping only when Misha’s head is pressed back into his pillow, hair skewed and cheeks pink beneath him. 

“Fuck, Misha. You’re so...  _Jesus_...” Jensen groans and moves to re-align them again, pushing and thrusting against the body beneath him. “I want to fuck you so goddamn bad it’s insane.”

Misha laughs and Jensen can’t believe how much of a turn on the sound is, the way it jerks his cock and makes him grind hard against Misha’s hipbones.

“Then why aren’t you?” Misha groans on the tail end of the laughter, lips planting and sucking along Jensen’s jaw.

“That’s a very good...oh,  _fuck_.” Jensen freezes as the thought occurs to him. “I don’t... I mean, I’m alone and this wasn’t exactly expected...” he stutters.

Misha raises an eyebrow, debauched and confused. “Huh?”

“Condoms... I don’t have any.”

“Oh!” Misha exclaims, an adorable crease forming between his eyes that Jensen wants to smooth away with his thumb.

Jensen groans and lets his forehead fall gently against Misha’s, their breaths mingling. “Well, it’s okay, we can do plenty of other-”

“I’m clean,” Misha blurts and immediately flushes pink as Jensen pulls back to focus on him without going cross-eyed. “I mean...”

Jensen chuckles and leans back to kiss at Misha’s kiss-swollen mouth. “So am I. If you’re sure?”

“Never been surer of anything in my whole damn life,” Misha growls, bucking up so his cock smears hard against Jensen’s abdomen.

“But I would point out that your manners really are atrocious,” Jensen says, leans in and tongues at the shell of Misha’s ear.

“I told you,” Misha huffs, fingers digging in under Jensen’s shoulder blades.

Jensen laughs against Misha’s ear and the shudder that goes through Misha’s body is immensely satisfying. He bites at the delicate cartilage and pulls back, leaning up on his forearms to either side of Misha’s head. The vision beneath him is a good one, mussed hair and red lips. Misha’s eyes are dark oceans clouded with desire that make Jensen’s teeth ache and his cock twitch.

“How do you want to do this? Top, bottom?” Jensen asks, slowly grinding his hips down against the body below him in a way that makes Misha whimper and squirm.

“Do I have to choose?” Misha pants, long fingers digging into Jensen’s upper arms.

“God, no,” Jensen replies emphatically. “But in the interest of ease it’s best to go with one first, don’tcha think?”

Misha grins and hooks a leg over the back of Jensen’s calves. “In that case, I really want your cock in me, Ranger Jensen.”

Despite the desire to shiver from head to toe, Jensen manages to groan out, “They don’t call them rangers up here, you know.”

“Really?” Misha asks, hooking his leg up further and pressing down on Jensen’s ass, pulling him in closer with his calf.

“No,” Jensen says, obliging Misha and thrusting gently against him. “Up here I’m technically a park warden.”

“Not a Mountie?” Misha grins, pushing his palms up and over Jensen’s shoulders, trailing his fingertips down to the crevice where Jensen’s ass meets his back.

“Funny,” Jensen deadpans, continuing to push against Misha’s warm skin.

“Haven’t even made the joke yet,” Misha smirks. “It was going to be something to do with you having to be on top.”

Jensen rolls his eyes and pushes up and off, leaving Misha spluttering. “We already agreed I’d be on top,” he says and pads out of the room, cock bobbing in front of him.

“Where are you going?” Misha calls and Jensen notes the slight note of worry to its edge with something approaching fondness. 

He swipes the hand lotion out of the medicine cabinet in the bathroom; it’s been in there forever and is way too oily for him to ever use on his hands...As a lube, however, he thinks it might work pretty damn well. He heads back, stopping in the bedroom door at the sight of Misha spread-eagled and naked against his sheets. 

“Lube,” Jensen answers, settling back onto the mattress, careful to avoid the leg Misha has been keeping away from him all this time. It looks red and sore, but nothing like that first night he all but carried Misha into this very room. He straddles Misha’s good leg and shifts down until Misha’s bony knee is nudging at the spot behind his balls. “Or at least,” he holds up the bottle, “as close as we’re going to get out here.”

“You’ll have to add that to the things you need them to fly up here,” Misha says solemnly.

He’s about to respond with a ‘not fucking likely’ when Misha wraps his fingers around his own cock, jacks slowly as he watches Jensen pour a good amount of the viscous liquid into his hand. 

“Absolutely,” Jensen manages as he spreads the greasy liquid over himself. 

Misha laughs, sensing his thought patterns and Jensen can’t take much more of the sight, Misha waiting for him, Misha tugging at his own cock, the hard pink flesh turning darker by the second as Misha’s blood rushes to fill it completely. 

In fact, he remembers exactly what he was thinking the day before as he waited for Misha to return to the camp, for help to come; though he’s slick and ready, he pauses, folds at the waist instead and bats Misha’s hand out of the way, pulling Misha’s cockhead into his mouth by suction alone. Misha almost jackknifes off the bed and the guttural groan that sounds like it’s been punched out of him goes straight to Jensen’s own cock. He tastes salty and human and Jensen hums around the hard flesh, his slicked up hand coming to wrap around the base. 

Misha’s moaning and writhing deliciously, Jensen’s name falling from his lips on more than one occasion and Jensen is giddy with it, the knowledge that he gets to do this with this guy. That he wants him to and it has nothing to do with how it looks to anyone else or who is going to care. No, Misha is writhing because Jensen has his mouth on his cock, sucking and laving with his tongue, mouthing with his lips and pushing his tongue against the vein. That thought alone is enough to make Jensen need to pull back, for fear of shooting early.

“Urgh,  _fuck_ , Jensen, fuck!” Misha mumbles, his own hand sliding back down and holding tight around the base of his cock. Apparently Jensen isn’t the only one.

“Problem?”

“Yes,” Misha hisses. “Unless you fuck me right now, you’re going to miss the party.”

“Okay,” Jensen smirks, and grabs the discarded bottle. He pours out more of the lotion and slaps gently at Misha’s inner thighs with greasy fingers to get him to spread. He does.

Jensen bites his lip, teasing a wet finger down the underside of Misha’s cock and over his balls, a ticklish figure eight drawn over them to a whine from Misha before he lets his finger slip lower, finds Misha’s hole and teases.

His finger only makes it in to the first knuckle before he feels Misha clamp down on him and growl, teeth grinding, “I don’t need it, just fuck me now, please, Jen.”

Jensen doesn’t need to be told twice. He slides over Misha’s leg, settling between Misha’s thighs. With a yank, he pulls Misha’s hips off the mattress, up so his ass rest on the tops of Jensen’s thighs and pushes his cock down with one hand, angles it up and presses at the resistance. He grabs hold of Misha’s hipbones for leverage.

“Ready?” He asks, pushing just enough that Misha feels it, wants it. Needs it.

“Fuck, Jensen, I’m going to kill you,” Misha growls and before the words leave his mouth completely Jensen pushes, slow but steady, breaching the ring of inner muscle.

Misha keens, a deep whine emanating from within him. Despite the angle he tries to push forward to impale himself on Jensen’s cock. It doesn’t work and Jensen feels him wrap his legs around his back, the stuttered cry of surprised pain as his sore shinbone catches against Jensen’s back and Misha’s other leg.

“Hey, hey,” Jensen soothes, gentles and pauses in his forward push. “Careful, Mish, I’ll get you there, I promise. Just be patient.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Misha grits out, carefully settling the injured leg back on the mattress, but keeping the uninjured one wrapped tight around Jensen. “You’re not the one with someone’s cock half up your ass.”

Jensen laughs, smoothes his thumbs over the dips beside Misha’s hipbones. “No, but I am the one who’s cock is halfway up yours, so be careful, damnit.” He can sense Misha is about to argue, and honestly, who the hell can hold onto a train of debate in the middle of sex? And so he presses forward, pulls Misha’s hips to him and seats himself slowly, fully, within him.

“Urgh, yes.” Misha hisses, still abortively trying to set up a rhythm when he has no leverage to do so.

Jensen takes pity on him, and himself, and begins to rock, pulling and pushing into him in small sharp movements. He’s right about the noises Misha makes, the bitten-off little mewls and gasps. Misha’s eyes screw shut and his arms fling outward to his sides, fingers curling in the sheets.

He’s so tight, and so hot... Jensen knows he isn’t going to last long at all. And rather than being worried, scared of being judged, he just feels deliriously calm. Safe. He knows they’re going to do this again. A lot. And he knows from the shivering little whimpers falling from Misha’s lips as he angles up and hits against Misha’s prostate with each thrust, that Misha isn’t going to last long, either.

Especially not if he helps him along, Jensen thinks, pulling one hand from a hipbone and wrapping it around Misha’s cock as it juts obscenely into the air.

Misha jerks and cries out sharp and loud, jolts so hard, in fact, that Jensen almost slips out entirely. “Fuck!” he whimpers, biting down on his lip in a way that makes Jensen ache deep in his belly to lean in and free it.

He can feel the tightening of Misha’s muscles, the resistance to his cock as they clamp down in a cry of too much. Misha’s balls tighten and Jensen can feel the final push of steel under skin as Misha moans out and comes, spurting milky semen over Jensen’s knuckles.

The tight vise around Jensen’s cock is so much it almost hurts, and the feel of the come dripping down his hand, the look of utter amazement softening Misha’s features... When Misha’s eyes open, dark navy and black with release, Jensen loses it. Feels his hips stutter and slam forward as his orgasm sweeps up through his cramped thighs and down his spine, pushing out of him into the hot heat surrounding him.

It lasts forever and nowhere near long enough, and it’s on autopilot he pulls out of Misha with a soft slide of semen and hand lotion, a mess he doesn’t give the slightest shit about. He carefully lowers Misha’s lower back onto the mattress, untangling their legs and sliding to the side, draping himself half over Misha’s chest with exertion that almost undoes him.

“Wow,” he manages as his brain catches up with his motor-function.

“Yeah,” Misha echoes, pulling Jensen further onto him as if he were a human blanket. “We’re doing that again.”

Jared never liked to cuddle after sex, intent on showering or getting up and going out, places to see, things to do and all that. Misha, though, makes no move to get out of bed, arms wrapping around Jensen as if they’re seven years in to a romance and used to such intimacies. 

Jensen pulls the blankets up and over them, mess and all, and presses his face into the warm crook of Misha’s throat.

* * *

They spend the next couple of weeks fucking like seventeen-year-olds on a first date. For at least three days, they barely get out of bed except to eat and shower. 

Jensen feels guilty for neglecting his duties, but on the other hand, the Senator is overjoyed at him getting the lumber-felling back on track, talking about commendations Jensen knows will never eventuate. He doesn’t care. He has everything he needs right in front of him. Besides, if anyone asks, he’s still recovering from his ordeal, and no one will dispute that.

Misha teaches him how to climb using the arborist technique, with rope splices and jumar ascsenders. Once Jensen has the hang of it, they spend days exploring the canopies, climbing and sky-walking through the branches. Jensen’s amazed at the new world he discovers with Misha, the tree-top gardens and eco-systems he had no idea existed. Whole trees and bushes, water and soil, animals, living hundreds of feet above the ground. Misha’s passion for them fills him with admiration and desire. He wants nothing more than to spend a lifetime studying these biological havens with Misha at his side. Even if it’s a dream he doesn’t share with Misha himself. Yet.

They spend hours debating the merits of clear-cutting versus selection cutting, both agreeing with the basic argument but teasing it out as they tease each other, the passion flashing in Misha’s eyes and the humour in Jensen’s as he drinks it in.

For once, Jensen feels like he’s found himself. Like he doesn’t need to keep running from the mess of his life before. Misha seems in no hurry to go anywhere, either, and it settles over Jensen in such an immensely comforting way that for a few days he freaks the hell out, fearing the illusion. Misha calls him on it in the middle of a hike, sucks Jensen off while pressed against the rough bark of a Lodgepole pine to prove a point. Jensen doesn’t question it anymore after that. 

Meanwhile, Bob recovers, and his restless hooting in the middle of the night convinces Jensen it’s time to let him go. Misha resists, wants his feathered pal to stay, but eventually even he realises Jensen is right. It’s time.

They take the cage outside, Misha supporting himself with a cane Jensen fashioned for him out of a tree branch, even though he doesn’t really need it any longer.

“Any last words?” Jensen asks, and Misha pouts sadly.

“Can’t we keep him?”

Jensen smiles softly. “No. But you can keep me, if you want?” he jokes, attempting to lighten the mood.

Misha’s pout becomes a smile, gentle and real. “Okay,” he says simply, and it’s somehow suddenly more than a joke.

Jensen grins and slides the metal opening of Bob’s cage up. Bob hoots once, as if checking that his freedom isn’t an illusion and going home is something he never thought would happen; then he darts through the opening, wings spreading and throwing himself into the air. With a few hard flaps of his newly healed wings, he soars, the brown-and-white stripes of his feathers all that’s visible from below. 

And then he’s gone, catching the stiff breeze of the Boreal wind and disappearing into the sky.

* * *

End.

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of this story is fictional - basically all the parts that include Jensen and Misha - but a lot of it is based in fact too. Although in the confines of fanfic it wasn’t possible to go into detail on a lot of the arguments around the logging industry, eco-terrorism and green politics, I did want to at least provide kernels of information for those who might want to read further. Things and places might be stretched, but truth underlies it. Stats used are real. For the record, my point of view is that we need to save our forests and stop logging them, and that sometimes that means making it economically un-viable to do so, by means that aren’t necessarily...well. However, like Jensen, I wish that this weren’t the case. Many thanks go out to kriari and nanoochka who alpha and beta’d this fic. Without them this would be much messier! All remaining mistakes are my own.


End file.
